Устроєві реформи Гетьмана Кирила Розумовського та початок кінця Козацького Гетьманату

Abstract

The article is devoted to a reconsideration of the reforms of the last Hetman of the Left Bank Ukraine Kyrylo Rozumovs’kii (1750–1764). In historiography, he has the image of the last hetman-statesman, who sought to strengthen the main institutions of Cossack autonomy. Analysis of the main ones — judicial, military and bureaucratic — shows that they were the result of the initiatives of the top Cossack Officials (starshyna), which in the middle of the XVIII century became the main political class of the country. The Hetman acted mainly as a lobbyist for senior interests before the imperial government, hoping in return to receive a hereditary hetmanship of its family. The most consistent and well-thought-out of these measures was judicial reform, which laid a solid foundation for the Cossack Official’s subsequent political projects, the main purpose of which was to establish his political dominance in Little Russia. Its essence was to restore the sectoral system of justice with a clear hierarchy of courts. The reform clearly separated the courts of seniority from the rest of the underprivileged commoners. Attempts to build their own system of seniority and service rank, as well as to equate them with Russian ranks, were less successful. Changes in the army were aimed at streamlining the military duties of Cossacks and attempts to instill elements of regular military organization: establishment of staff, uniforms, weapons, equipment, symbols, training etc. These changes, however, were cosmetic in nature, not fundamentally changing the estate status of the Cossack army. But, even the partial implementation of these transformations contradicted the integration strategy of the Russian Empire, which led first to the liquidation of the institution of the Hetmanate, and later to the autonomous system of the whole Hetmanate.