Historians Tell How Ukraine Was Integrated Into the Russian Empire in the 18th Century

10:25, February 15, 2022

The university published a monograph on the influence of informal connections in Ukrainian politics

How the ruling elite of the Russian state interacted informally from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great with the Cossack elite of Hetman (Cossack Hetmanate) Ukraine, an autonomous part of Russia since 1654, what place did Ivan Mazepa hold in the entourage of Peter I and how did his treason affect Ukrainian politics, how was the active participation of Hetman Kirill Razumovsky in the overthrow of Peter III with the final abolition of the Hetmanate in 1764 and much more was told by historians of the Ural Federal University. The team of the Ural Federal University's Laboratory of Primary Sources Research has published a monograph "Patrons, Servants and Friends. Russian-Ukrainian informal relations and governance of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1700-1760s".

"The book is devoted to the place of informal ties in the public administration of the early modern time on the materials of Hetman Ukraine. The research part analyzes how, both within the official procedures and outside them, at the informal level, the relations between Ukrainian Cossack leaders and the Russian elite were built and how it affected the Ukrainian policy of the Russian government and the evolution of governance of Cossack Hetmanate for over six decades, from the Hetmanate of Ivan Mazepa to the final liquidation of the institution of Hetmanate in 1764", explain the authors of the publication.

The authors paid special attention to the actions of representatives of the Little Russian foremen, who became active participants in the development and implementation of the Ukrainian policy of the Russian state. The study is based on an extensive set of both published and unpublished sources from nine archival depositories in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev. The most interesting and important archival documents historians have made available to all those interested in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations: the book in the "Sources" section published the correspondence of Hetman Ivan Mazepa with the closest associate and favorite of Peter I Alexander Menshikov, letters of the head of the Secret Office Peter Tolstoy to his son Peter Tolstoy, who in Hetman Ukraine by order of Peter I held the position of Nizhyn colonel, correspondence of Hetman Count Kirill Razumovsky with his friends in St. Petersburg and many other materials.

Reference

The publication is one of the results of the three-year project "Informal Connections in the Context of Public Administration in Eighteenth-Century Russia: Administrative Strategies and Social Practices" (2018-2021), supported by the Russian Science Foundation.

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office
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