The Estate System in Ukraine

As the medieval period drew to a close, the estate system of organizing society, unknown in Kievan Rus’, penetrated into Ukraine from the West by way of Poland. Unlike classes that reflect a social group’s economic status, estates were based on the legally established rights, privileges, and obligations that each social group possessed.

Foremost of the estates that emerged in the 14th–15th centuries was the nobility, whose high position stemmed, at least in theory, from the “blood spilled” in the military service of the king or grand prince. Various socioeconomic groups went into the making of this estate. In Ukraine, while it was still a part of the Grand Principality, the most important component of the nobility were the twenty to thirty princely or magnate families that traced their descent from the once-sovereign princes of the Riurikid or Gediminas dynasties. Most of these princely clans were concentrated in Volhynia, the bastion of Ukraine’s aristocracy. The wealthiest among them, the Ostrozky family, had vast holdings that included about 30% of all the land in Volhynia (14,000 sq. km) on which there were 100 towns and over 1300 villages. Other rich and illustrious families were the Sanhusko, Chartorysky, Zbarazky, Vysh-nevetsky, Zaslavsky, and Chetvertynsky. These families dominated most of the high offices in the Grand Principality and traces of their former sovereign rights survived in their right to lead their own troops under their personal banners or to be judged only by the grand prince, not by local officials.

The vast majority of the nobility, later called by the Polish term szlachta, consisted of those whose privileges derived primarily from military service.² The upper stratum of the szlachta, numbering several hundred families in Ukraine, some of whom descended from the boyars of Kievan times, owned estates of ten to fifteen villages and monopolized the local administration. Most numerous were the lowest levels of the nobility. Thousands of families, some recently emerged from peasant or burgher backgrounds, obtained noble status by serving as cavalrymen in campaigns, castle or frontier guards, or armed servitors of the magnates. Often they had just enough land to support themselves, and their life-style differed little from that of peasants. Especially in Galicia, whole villages were inhabited by poor noblemen with names like Kulchytsky, Iavorsky, Chaikovsky, and Vytvytsky.

Despite the great socioeconomic differences and tensions that existed within the nobility, the fact that these men of the sword received grants of privileges in common in 1387, 1413, 1430, and 1434 helped to develop among them a consciousness of belonging to a common estate. In Poland, where the nobility was best organized and most powerful, it constituted about 8–10% of the population (the European average was about 1–2%). In the Ukrainian lands of the Grand Principality, the nobles gained special status more slowly and probably did not make up more than 5% of the general population. The burghers

The inhabitants of the cities in Ukraine, about 10–15% of the population, also evolved into a separate corporate entity. As they grew in size and self-confidence, major towns acquired the highly prized Magdeburg Law from Polish kings and Lithuanian grand princes. Modelled on the administration of the German city of Magdeburg and brought to Ukraine by way of Poland, the law was designed to provide a town with self-government. In 1356 Lviv, in 1374 Kamianets in Podilia, in 1432 Lutsk in Volhynia, and in 1494 Kiev obtained Magdeburg Law, thereby freeing themselves from the interference of royal or princely officials.

Despite the theoretical equality of all citizens subject to Magdeburg Law, sharp socioeconomic distinctions existed among a town’s inhabitants. Rich, patrician families, such as the forty or fifty who formed the elite in Lviv, totally dominated town government. Small merchants and tradesmen formed the middle stratum. The urban laborers, who were usually deprived of rights because they owned no property in the town and often lived beyond its walls, made up most of its population. As always, the town dwellers were the most ethnically variegated social group: among them one could find Ukrainians who were descended from the original inhabitants of the towns and, in ever-increasing numbers, newly arrived Polish noblemen and officials, German craftsmen, and Jewish and Armenian merchants. The peasants

While special rights defined the above-mentioned estates, obligations characterized the approximately 80% of Ukraine’s population who were peasants. For the right to use land, a peasant owed the landowning nobleman duties, which usually took the form of providing free labor or paying rents in kind. As long as a peasant fulfilled these obligations, and in the 14th century they were relatively light, rarely totaling more than fourteen days of free labor a year, he could not be removed from his plot of land. In fact, a peasant could sell or bequeath the use of his plot to others.

At a time when land was plentiful but people were not, peasants managed to win relatively extensive rights. They were free men – under the pressure of the church and economic constraints, the limited slavery that had existed in Kievan times had died out – who could challenge nobles in law courts and, under certain circumstances, leave their lord’s estate to seek better conditions elsewhere. In certain areas of Ukraine there were peasants who were completely independent of nobles. For example, in the Carpathian highlands, where animal husbandry was prevalent, many villages possessed the “Moldavian Law,” which provided them with complete autonomy in return for regular payments (usually in the form of sheep) to noble landlords.

The numerous grants of rights and privileges to various social groups in the Grand Principality created a need for a codified set of laws. Especially the middle and lower szlachta, anxious to convert its privileged status into an article of law, pressed for a legal code. As a result, in 1529, the first edition of the Lithuanian Statute appeared. In addition to confirming noble rights, it incorporated elements of customary law that reached as far back as Kievan times. Simultaneously, it introduced new legal concepts that originated in Germany. In 1568 and 1588 two more editions of the Lithuanian Statute appeared, inspired by the need to adjust to the changes brought on by the Union of Lublin.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Lithuanian Statute in Ukrainian legal history. Besides institutionalizing the important socioeconomic changes that occurred in 15th–16th century Ukraine, it also formed the basis of the legal system that developed later in Cossack Ukraine. In fact, as late as the 19th century, laws in parts of eastern Ukraine were still based on the statute. There is yet another aspect of the role in Ukraine of the Lithuanian Statute in particular and of the estate system in general that needs to be emphasized. Both of these elements were exceedingly influential in developing a familiarity with and appreciation of such concepts as legally defined and guaranteed rights among Ukrainians. And this consciousness served to link Ukrainians with Western legal and political thought. In contrast, Muscovy, the other outgrowth of Kievan Rus’, as a result of centuries of Mongol rule, had little opportunity to familiarize itself with the principles of Western legality.