The Structure of the Cossack State

Prior to the revolution of 1648, Cossacks living on Ukrainian lands were nominally under the jurisdiction of the Polish Kingdom. By the second half of the sixteenth century, when they had developed into a well-organized military force, there exist­ed two types of Cossacks: (1) town Cossacks, who lived in or near frontier border towns and who were in the service of the Polish administration; and (2) Zaporo­zhian Cossacks, who lived farther south in the no-man’s-land below the bend of the Dnieper River between the Polish Kingdom and the Crimean Khanate.

Both the town Cossacks and the Zaporozhian Cossacks were charged, or charged themselves, with the defense of the Polish frontier against incursions by the Tatars and Ottoman Turks. Both groups also led offensive campaigns in con­cert or alone against their traditional Tatar and Ottoman enemies in the south. Especially during the early decades of the seventeenth century, they frequently fought with Poland’s armies in its wars against Sweden, the Livonian Knights, and Muscovy. As both groups of Cossacks were drawn more and more into Polish mili­tary ventures, they also were affected by Poland’s attempts to gain greater control over their activity.

Registered and unregistered Cossacks

One result of Polish interference in Cossack life was a greater differentiation between the two Cossack groups. This differentiation was symbolized most graphi­cally by the policy of registration, whereby registered Cossacks, most often from the border towns, were made an integral part of the Polish frontier military admin­istration. The unregistered Cossacks, mostly in Zaporozhia, in contrast remained beyond the pale of Polish authority, with the consequence that their territory was viewed with suspicion as a place where runaway serfs and others who posed a potential threat to the Polish-Lithuanian social order found refuge.

The registered Cossacks, who by the first half of the seventeenth century ranged in number from about 6,000 to 8,000, resided in or near the Polish administrative centers in the Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv palatinates. They frequently owned their own estates, and some developed a degree of wealth and social prestige which, together with their privileges as registered Cossacks, transformed them into a kind of Ukrainian gentry, even though they were not recognized as members of the noble estate in Poland. It is from this group of the Cossack elite that many of the officers and other officials were drawn to staff the new administration of the Cossack state after 1648. This upper-class Cossack stratum generally came to be known as the starshyna.

The unregistered Cossacks consisted of two groups: (1) Cossacks from Zaporo- zhia and even farther north who may have served with the Polish army in its time of need (in 1620 the register reached 20,000), but who were soon after removed from the register; and (2) a steady stream of peasants and others who, discontent with the increasing burdens of serfdom, fled south to lead the Cossack way of life in landlordless Zaporozhia.

The fortified center of Zaporozhia, the sich, moved several times in the course of the seventeenth century, usually progressively southward onto islands or among tributaries of the Dnieper River. By the second half of the century, the sich had developed a more organized administrative structure. While the Sich Council (sichova rada), made up of all members who had equal votes, remained the highest source of authority in administrative and military matters, it was often unwieldy and gradually gave way to the decisions set by the Council of Elders (rada starshyn). The latter council was made up of an elected judge, a chancellor (pysar), an aide- de-camp (osaul), lieutenants of the varying military units (kurinni otamany), and the head or chief of the sich, the koshovyi otaman. Whereas at various times the sich elected its own hetmans (P.

Apart from the sich, the steppe region immediately on both sides of the Dnieper River was inhabited by married Cossacks and free homesteaders, that is, former serfs and others who had come to Zaporozhia to lead the Cossack way of life. As well as engaging in fishing, hunting, cattle raising, and, later, farming, the married Cossacks and free homesteaders joined the Cossacks from the sich in raids against the Tatars and Turks, served in the foreign ventures of the Polish kings, and took part in attacks against Polish military forces and local administrators during times of Polish-Cossack friction. Satisfied with their own situation beyond the reach of Polish royal and local noble governmental authority, the unregistered Cossacks in the sich and in the surrounding Zaporozhian countryside were often suspicious of the town Cossacks and, later, starshyna farther north. Consequently, during the frequent revolts against Polish rule, the Zaporozhian Cossacks were often pitted against registered Cossacks in Polish service.

Internal administration

As a registered Cossack and aspiring member of the gentry, Bohdan Kmel’nyts’kyi initially hoped to obtain personaljustice and to uphold and improve the status of his

What to Call the Cossack State?

The new Cossack state, which came into being in 1649 in the course of the Khmel’nyts’kyi uprising, was officially known as the Army of Zaporozhia (Viis’ko Zaporiz’ke) or the Zaporozhian Host, even though it was not centered in Zaporozhia. Despite its name, it was the creation of the registered Cossacks living in Ukrainian territories farther north and not of the Zaporozhians, who were united with it only through the personal leadership of Khmel’nyts’kyi.

In this and subsequent chapters, the term Cossack state will be used with reference to the period between 1649 and 1711. While it is true that by the sec­ond half of the seventeenth century there were already pronounced differences among the various Cossack regions (the Hetmanate, Sloboda Ukraine, Zapo­rozhia, the Right Bank), the term Cossack state, which implies a single entity, is justified by the fact that throughout this period most hetmans from Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi to Ivan Mazepa tried to create some kind of autonomous or independent entity consisting of all lands inhabited by Cossacks. After 1711, the individual regional names will be used. In any case, after that date it was only in the Hetmanate that the tradition of Cossack statehood was preserved.

social group within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When it became increas­ingly evident, however, that the revolutionary events he had set in motion in 1648 could not be contained, and that his limited demands on behalf of his estate repre­sented an insufficient response in a rapidly changing military, political, and social situation, the Cossack leader was forced to create a new administrative structure for the territories that had come under his control. The result was the Cossack state.

Technically, the Cossack state came into existence at the peace reached at Zboriv in August 1649 between Khmel’nyts’kyi and the Polish government. By the terms of the Zboriv agreement, the palatinates of Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv - that is, the region within Poland that had come to be known as Ukraine - were cleared of Polish administrative and military authorities, who were then replaced by Cossacks.

MAP 20

THE COSSACK STATE, 1651

northern Chernihiv) were again proposed for the Grand Duchy of Rus’ in the tri­partite confederation of Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians outlined in the Union of Hadiach (1658).

The boundaries of the Cossack state were influenced by the changing military situation during the Khmel’nyts’kyi uprising and the Period of Ruin that followed. The state reached its greatest territorial extent under Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, and included the Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv palatinates on both the Left and Right Banks of the Dnieper River. Moreover, Zaporozhia, along the southern fringes of the Kiev palatinate, and even some Belarusan lands of Lithuania, in the north, rec­ognized the suzerainty of the hetman (see map 18). This situation changed sub­stantially after Khmel’nyts’kyi’s death. Following the Treaty of Andrusovo reached between Muscovy and Poland in 1667 and later renewed as the so-called eternal peace of 1686, the Cossack state remained divided more or less along the Dnieper River between Poland and Muscovy, with both powers having a joint protectorate over Zaporozhia. In consequence, only Ukrainian territory on the Muscovite east­ern bank, or Left Bank, continued to survive as an autonomous Cossack state. This territory, consisting of the old Polish palatinates of Chernihiv and eastern Kiev (as well as the city of Kiev on the Right Bank) and measuring about 80,000 square miles (208,000 square kilometers), has come to be known in historical literature as the Hetmanate.

As for Sloboda Ukraine, it had a Cossack administrative system, although the region never became part of either the Cossack state or the Hetmanate.

As early as under Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, the Polish palatinates of Kiev, Cherni­hiv, and Bratslav, each with its own palatine, district officials (starosta and vice- starosta), and administration made up largely of aristocrat-controlled courts and other governmental offices, were replaced. Under Cossack rule, the new state was divided into military-administrative units called regimental districts (polky), each named after its regimental town center. The number of districts fluctuated with the changing boundaries of the Cossack state. In 1649, when the Cossack state included lands on the Right and Left Banks, there were sixteen regimental dis­tricts (a seventeenth was added in 1651), with 272 companies; at the end of the eighteenth century, the Hetmanate on the Left Bank alone consisted of ten regi­mental districts, with 174 companies.

Each regimental district was headed by a colonel (polkovnyk), who served as both the supreme military and the supreme civil authority in his territory. Because of his dual authority and the fact that long periods of political instability precluded effec­tive control by any higher, central governmental structure, the regimental colonels often became all-powerful and semi-independent figures, miniature hetmans in a sense. Initially, the colonels were elected by all the Cossacks in the regiment, who met together in a loose regimental council (Polkova rada), but by the eighteenth century they had come to be appointed by the hetman. The regimental council also met to decide common problems, but by the eighteenth century that council

The Cossack State Administration

CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION

HETMAN

REGIMENTAL ADMINISTRATION

COLONEL (polkovnyk)

had disappeared, and regiments were effectively being run by the colonel assisted by his regimental staff (Polkova starshyna) and a regimental officer council (Rada polkovo'i starshyny). The regimental staff consisted of a quartermaster (the regi­ment’s second in command), judge, chancellor, aide-de-camp, and flag-bearer.

Each of the regimental districts in turn was divided into companies (sotnia), which ranged in number from eleven to twenty-three according to the size of the regimental territory. Each company was headed by a captain (sotnyk), who was assisted by a small staff (Sotenna starshyna) that included an otaman (the sec­ond in command), a scribe, and an aide-de-camp. At first, captains were elected by all Cossacks in the company, who met in a council (Sotenna rada), but by the end of the seventeenth century they had come to be appointed by the hetman or the regimental colonel and effectively held their office for life. In keeping with the trend espoused by Muscovy toward a service state, the office of captain be­came hereditary and included among its privileges authority over manorial peas­ants.

At the top of the Cossack administrative structure was the hetman, his Cabinet General, and two councils, the General Military Council and the Council of Offic­ers. The supreme authority rested with the hetman, who was elected by the Gen­eral Military Council. The hetman ruled without limit of tenure, which in practice meant until he died or was removed by force. In theory, he could be dismissed by the General Military Council for misconduct. The hetman had full executive power over the administration, the judiciary, finances, and the army, and he nomi­nated and later appointed the colonels of the regimental districts. After 1649, the hetman had at his disposal all the income from the former estates of the Polish king located in the Kiev, Chernihiv, and Bratslav palatinates (about 100,000 gold pieces anually). In subsequent years, the Cossack government’s income came primarily from duties levied on foreign imports and from taxes on the sale of alcohol. The hetman also had the right to grant lands and mills as a reward for military service, and he often did so as a way of reimbursing supporters when the state treasury was low. Finally, the hetman had the right to conduct foreign policy, although the Muscovite government tried to limit this privilege, especially during the eighteenth century.

The hetman’s immediate central administration consisted of the Cabinet Gen­eral (Heneral'na starshyna), or the General Staff, which he appointed. The senior member of the hetman’s cabinet was the general quartermaster. He was the officer responsible for the artillery, who also functioned as acting hetman (nakaznyi het­man) when the hetman was out of the country or at a time between the death of one hetman and the accession of another. Other cabinet members included a general chancellor, a general treasurer (two after 1728), two general judges, two general aides-de-camp, a general standard bearer, and a general flag-bearer. The hetman’s Cabinet General functioned simultaneously as the supreme military command and the cabinet of governmental ministers in the Cossack state. The state was administered by several central institutions (the treasury, the court, and the accounting office) that eventually became subordinate to the General Military Chancellery, headed by the general chancellor. The General Military Chancellery was responsible for the implementation of decrees issued by the tsars and hetmans and for the investigation of all complaints against officials.

The two other elements of the central administration were the General Military Council and the Council of Officers. The General Military Council (Heneral’na viis kova rada) had its origins in the sixteenth-century Zaporozhian Sich. It both elected hetmans and had the right to dismiss them, and in theory all Cossacks had the right to participate in its proceedings. This irregular assembly, which declined in importance in the decades before Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, became influential once again during the unstable Period of Ruin, when it included clergy, towns­people, and peasants as well as Cossacks. The so-called Black Council (Chorna Rada) of 1663 was the best known, some would say an infamous, example of this unwieldy body. After the Period of Ruin, the importance of the General Military Council waned again, and it became primarily a ceremonial body, convened only to acclaim the new hetman elected previously by the smaller Council of Officers.

The Council of Officers (Rada starshyn) took three different forms. The first, or Smaller Council consisted only of the hetman and his Cabinet General; the second, or Large Council included those two elements as well as the regimental colonels and at times their officers’ staff. There were also periods when enlarged sessions of the Council of Officers took place. These included all the elements of the Large Council, to which were added company captains (sotnyky) and at times mayors of towns and higher clergy. In contrast to the smaller Council of Officers, which met several times a week, the enlarged sessions of the council met at the hetman’s residence twice a year, between Christmas and Epiphany and again at Easter. The main concerns of the various forms of the Council of Officers were the state’s financial problems, the status of mercenary military units within the Cos­sack forces, and at times military campaigns and the codification of laws. There were never any clear-cut lines of function and authority between the hetman and the various forms of the Council Officers, which by the eighteenth century func­tioned primarily as an advisory body to the hetman who could accept or disregard at his discretion the advice given him.

The seat of the hetman and his government was first at Chyhyryn, near Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi’s birthplace. Chyhyryn served as the Cossack capital from 1648 to 1663. In subsequent years, when the Cossack state was divided, Chyhyryn served for a time (1665-1676) as the seat of the Right Bank Cossack administration. The Left Bank had its own capitals: Hadiach (1663-1668), Baturyn (1669-1708), and, finally, Hlukhiv, which remained the seat of the Hetmanate until its demise in the 1780s.

International status

The Cossack state and, later, the Hetmanate were never fully independent, but rather were more or less autonomous units within a larger state structure, whether Poland or Muscovy. Between 1649 and 1654, and on the Right Bank between 1658 and 1676, the Polish king was the ultimate sovereign. The relationship between the Cossack state and Poland was based on a kind of personal union between the hetman and the king. The hetman was chosen by the Cossacks, and no Polish administration was permitted on Cossack territory. Between 1654 and 1657, and then on the Left Bank after 1663, the Muscovite tsar was the ultimate sovereign over the Cossack state and the Hetmanate.

The relationship between Muscovy and the Hetmanate was based on the agree­ments of Pereiaslav (the original 1654 and revised 1659 versions) and on amend­ments implemented upon the installation of each new hetman (1663, 1669, 1672, 1687). Following Muscovy’s practice of centralized authority, the tsar’s government was anxious to maintain control over its ever-expanding realm. Within a few years after 1654, therefore, the Muscovite government stationed its own representative on Cossack territory. For example, according to the revised articles of Pereiaslav concluded in 1659, a Muscovite governor (voevoda) with a garrison was to be sta­tioned in Kiev, Nizhyn, Pereiaslav, Bratslav, and Uman’. By 1665, not only was Muscovy claiming direct rule over the cities of Kiev, Chernihiv, Pereiaslav, Nizhyn, Poltava, Novhorod-Sivers’kyi, Kremenchuk, Kodak, and Oster, but the tsar’s gov­ernment was sending officials to ensure that all taxes, including revenue on liquor, be returned directly to the tsar’s treasury. Although Cossack protests forced Mus­covy to repeal these measures in 1669, tsarist governors remained in Kiev and in four other cities on the Left Bank - Chernihiv, Nizhyn, Pereiaslav, and Oster. The Muscovite presence continued to increase, with the result that by the eighteenth century the Hetmanate gradually had lost control of its own governmental affairs. In Moscow itself, matters pertaining to Ukraine’s Cossack state were at first han­dled by the Central Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Posolskii prikaz, 1654-1663), but after the appearance of a separate hetman on the Left Bank in 1663, a special chancellery was created, the Central Ministry for Little Russia (Malorossiiskii pri­kaz), which continued to function until 1722.