Keeping ancient freedoms intact

(Conclusion. For beginning see The Day No. 13)

It should be stressed that Pyotr Rumiantsev was trying to draw up an imperial project to reform the Hetman state. The Little Russian Collegium, as a Hetmanate institution, also elected its own delegate, D. Natalyin, and gave him a set of instructions. The collegium-drafted instructions almost fully copied the memorandum, which the Kyiv governor-general had submitted to Catherine II in 1765.

The instructions called for dividing the Little Russian Collegium into military, financial, and law departments, as well as for establishing provinces depending on the density of the population and reorganizing the bureaucratic apparatus and the Cossack army. Cossack starshyna (senior officers who wielded a great deal of clout in the administration) were offered the status of Russian nobility (dvorianstvo) and zemstvo. The elite were not too much happy about this project of Hetmanate reforms. Fully aware of this, Rumiantsev was prepared for a clash with Ukrainian delegates at the Legislative Commission’s session in Moscow.

The Legislative Commission held its sessions in 1767–68, the first sitting of the commission’s Grand Assembly being opened by Empress Catherine II herself. The procedure specified that this assembly was to examine Russian laws and invite a relevant subcommittee to draw up new legal standards. A five-man panel was to supervise the subcommittees and bring their proceedings into line with those of the Grand Assembly.

As the procedure was unclear and the deputies had no idea of a parliamentary political tradition, the Legislative Commission’s Grand Assembly turned, to quote V. Sergeyevich, into “a totally useless reading and talking exercise.” Interestingly, when asked by Procurator-General Vyazemsky whether all this was necessary, taking into account that the Russian state, as far as its laws are concerned, was divided into three parts — Great Russia, Little Russia, and Livonia — and each of them was governed by its own laws, the committee answered in the affirmative. In general, the Ukrainian deputies refrained from debating at the Grand Assembly sessions — they only responded to the claims of Great Russian deputies and central government representatives to “Little Russian rights.”

According to Governor-General Rumiantsev, it was Ivan Skoropadsky who actually led the Ukrainian nobility. He represented a much esteemed family of the Skoropadskys. His grandfather, also Ivan Skoropadsky, was the Hetman of Ukraine in 1708–22, his mother was a daughter of Hetman Danylo Apostol (1727–34), and his father was the Chernihiv Regiment Colonel. The Ukrainian intellectual studied at Kyiv Mohyla Academy and the University of Breslau (Wroc aw). After graduation, he became a general osaul. Rumiantsev said this about him in a letter to Catherine II on April 13: “I strongly doubt that General Osaul Skoropadsky, delegated by the Chernihiv regiment, will really stand by and make demands according to the given instructions. As far as I can judge, although he is a learned and well-traveled person, he still remains a Cossack with all the implications.” In his next letters to the empress, the Kyiv governor-general continued to characterize the Cossack intellectual as a “true patriot and lover of freedom.”

In October 1767 the Commerce Collegium delegate Sergei Mezheninov proposed that all foreign trade be carried out via the Saint Petersburg port. This proposal sparked a vigorous protest from the delegates of the Hetman state, Slobidska and Southern Ukraine. The Nizhyn deputy Ivan Kostevych insisted that banning the trade across Little Russia’s border was a violation of the privileges and rights of the “Little Russian people” and especially “Little Russian merchants.” Similar statements came from four of the ten nobleman delegates, six of the ten burgher delegates, and eight of the nine Cossack delegates.

Furthermore, 11 delegates from Slobidska and Southern Ukraine backed Kostevych in the question of the Hetman state’s trade rights. Viewing sociopolitical life through the prism of the Hetman state’s “Little Russian rights” even caused Ivan Shchapov, representative of the Russian old believers, to support the Ukrainian deputies: he said that people of his faith were also eligible for enjoying traditional “Little Russian trade rights.”

The next debate, which illustrated sociopolitical views of the Ukrainian nobility in the 1760s, was a dispute triggered by Andrii Aleinykov, a Slobidska Ukraine Cossack. He condemned imposing serfdom on peasants in the Hetmanate and Slobidska Ukraine and proposed that senior officers be forbidden to buy land with peasants. Aleinykov also proposed forbidding the Russian nobility to buy manors on Ukrainian territories and Ukrainians to buy land with peasants in Greater Russia.

On Nov. 5, 1767, a Nizhyn nobility deputy, Havrylo Bozhych, responded to Aleinykov at a Grand Assembly session. He explained to the Slobidska Ukraine Cossacks that “Little Russia” had laws of its own. The nobility delegate maintained that the Hetman state’s society was divided, as European countries were, into estates, i.e., the nobility, the clergy, the military (Cossacks), burghers, and peasants. Moreover, each estate enjoyed its own land management rights. Bozhych referred to the Lithuanian Statute, the 1727 ukase on forbidding foreigners to settle in Little Russia, and the 1728 ukase, which banned Russians from buying real estate in the Hetman’s state.

Aleinykov did not accept Bozhych’s arguments and, on Dec. 17, 1767, came up with the idea of protecting the Cossack estate in various regions of the Russian Empire. He was convinced that the “Little Russian people” in the Hetman state, Slobidska and Southern Ukraine had long been enjoying considerable rights and, accordingly, they were supposed to defend these prerogatives. He suggested that the Russians in the Hetman state and Slobisdka Ukraine go back to Russia and the Ukrainian Cossacks residing in Greater Russia return to Ukraine. In addition, Ukrainian landlords were to be banned from selling or colonizing lands with serf peasants. In response, the nobility delegate again explained to Aleinykov that he did not understand the difference between his Slobodska Ukraine and the Hetmanate. According to Bozhych, “Little Russia” was a separate territorial entity that existed as part of the Russian Empire on the basis of the rights guaranteed by Polish kings and Russian tsars. Moreover, the deputy promised to furnish Aleinykov with documents that guarantee this status.

When the Grand Assembly was debating on the regional privileges of Livonia, Estonia, and Finland, a Kyiv delegate entered into a dispute with the Russian nobility delegate Nikifor Tolmachov over local rights. The Ukrainian burgher noted that Magdeburg Law had been bestowed on Kyiv by Polish King Sigismund and confirmed by Russian Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in 1654, so the Grand Assembly had no right to disturb the traditional setup. In the heat of the debates for privileges of the Baltic nobility, on Dec. 18, 1767, it was decided to adjourn the Legislative Commission’s Grand Assembly until Feb. 18, 1768, and relocate it to Saint Petersburg.

For the Ukrainian delegates, the beginning of the Legislative Commission’s proceedings in St. Petersburg was similar to what had previously occurred in Moscow. Whenever deputies from other regions of the Russian Empire proposed new projects of a societal legal system, the Hetmanate delegates insisted that their “Little Russian rights” did not need to be reformed at all. When Yakiv Kozelsky, a Southern Ukraine delegate, proposed a number of land reforms, including establishing land inheritance norms, the Hetmanate delegates said in protest that all they had to do was confirm the centuries-old “Little Russian rights.”

Zakharii Zabila, a Pereyaslav nobility delegate, pointed out that the Little Russian delegation was asking for “Little Russian rights and freedoms” to be confirmed. What is more, rallying around Ivan Skoropadsky, the Ukrainian delegates were still more determined to defend their rights. Rumiantsev said in a letter to Catherine II on Feb. 28, 1768: “Skoropadsky, who, unfortunately, polled most of the votes in many elections of deputies and who thinks he is worthy of being elected the hetman (if such an election were held), is now doing his best to defend and assert their Cossack freedoms and rights like never before. They created quite a furor when they unanimously voted for the rights and freedoms of Livonians in a hope that the latter will do the same to support [Ukrainian] interests. And if the Livonians are really going to side with them, as they promise, then I must say, Your Most Gracious Majesty, that I did not know what the Livonians really are. He, Skoropadsky, is saying himself that he is going to raise an objection that will cancel all the clauses of the Collegium’s instructions.”

Indeed, the Hetman state’s population, first of all the nobility and Cossacks, really wanted to see Ivan Skoropadsky as hetman. The Cossack Matvii Novak said in June 1768: “Little Russia has lost its erstwhile freedom, and Zaporozhians’ rights have been greatly infringed upon. And if Mr. Skoropadsky becomes hetman but the previous freedoms are not restored, Little Russian Cossacks and Zaporozhians… will attack Muscovites and behead Rumiantsev first of all.” The same source says that “in Hlukhiv people are awaiting the arrival of Mr. Skoropadsky as hetman.” But Skoropadsky transferred his powers to Pavlo Rymsha and came back to the Hetman state. He was aware that his project of Little Russia as part of the Russian Empire did not suit the central government. Incidentally, many Nizhyn noblemen, who spoke out for restoration of the Hetmanate and the Cossack administration, were tried and sentenced to death.

In this situation, Hryhorii Poletyka, who represented the Lubny nobility, became the leader of the Hetman state’s delegation. The Lubny regiment drew up such an autonomy-oriented instruction that the delegate Colonel Anton Kryzhanivsky did not dare submit it to the Legislative Commission. The Lubny nobility decided to send Poletyka, a Ukrainian intellectual, a subject of the Russian Empire, and a Lubny estate owner, instead of the Cossack colonel.

The first thing he did as head of the Hetmanate delegation was issue the “Objections of Deputy Hryhorii Poletyka to Deputy Dmitry Natalin of the Little Russian Collegium.” Poletyka gave his assessment of the treaties under which Ukraine was placed under the Moscow tsar’s protectorate and enumerated the ten benefits which Russia had reaped as a result. In the Cossack intellectual’s view, what was going on ran counter to the Little Russian Collegium’s attempts “to introduce in Little Russia the institutions that totally oppose the existing rights and freedoms and thus violate the sanctity of treaties.”

When the Grand Assembly began to discuss the new wording of Article 43 (“The Rights of the Nobility”) on Aug. 21, 1768, Poletyka came up with a memorandum on the rights of the Little Russian nobility (shliakhetstvo). Poletyka argued that the rights of Russian noblemen was a matter of Greater Russia and suggested confirming the traditional rights of the Hetman state’s nobility or including the “rights of the Little Russian nobility” into the general imperial draft law. The next session of the Grand Assembly heard Maksym Tymofeyev, representing the Hetman state’s elected Cossacks, who insisted that the tsars had guaranteed the “rights” of not only the nobility but also “the Little Russian Cossack army.” Tellingly, the way the Hetman state’s delegation was defending its interests prompted the delegates of Livonia, Estonia, Finland, and Smolensk to resolutely defend their own regional rights.

On Sept. 9, 1768, after the Legislative Commission’s Grand Assembly had discussed the status of the nobility of the Russian Empire’s autonomous regions, the presiding General Bibikov read out a statement that delegates from Livonia, Estonia, Finland, Little Russia, and Smolensk had exceeded their powers and, accordingly, their proposals would not be taken into account. As the rights of the Hetman state’s estates were no longer subject to debate, the Ukrainian deputies filed a petition on behalf of “the nobility, Cossacks, and burghers” to the empress herself. This document listed the benefits that the Russian Empire had reaped from the union between Moscow and the Hetman state and expressed a request to confirm Ukrainian rights and freedoms “for centuries to come.” In the opinion of Z. Kohut, it was the time when Poletyka wrote the famous “Historical Message.”

In contrast to Ivan Skoropadsky, Hryhorii Poletyka proposed in his speeches and petitions that Ukraine restore the administrative, legal, and social practices that existed before Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s uprising. Since, in the Ukrainian intellectual’s view, the Hetman state went into decline due to the usurpation of legislative and judicial power by the military, i.e., the Cossack administration, the fatherland will only benefit from the disengagement of civilian, military, and judicial power.

According to Poletyka, regular sejms were legislative bodies of power, while the judicial branch was represented by the nobility’s and magistrate courts. The champion of Cossack autonomy did not think that Ukrainian cities should adopt a foreign model if it was possible to confirm Magdeburg Law and municipal autonomy. He also opposed the replacement of Cossack senior officers by regular army officers. In his opinion, it would be better to select Cossack senior officers on the basis of sufficient military experience.

The instructions for the Legislative Commissions (1767–68) and the participation of the Hetman state’s delegates it its proceedings showed that the 18th-century Ukrainian elite regarded their fatherland as an autonomous part of the Russian Empire. There were different interpretations of this autonomy. The common thing was that the Hetman state and its estates, above all “the Little Russian nobility,” enjoyed special rights. This resulted from historical privileges, treaties, and “Bohdan Kmelnytsky articles,” which the Hetmanate’s intellectuals regarded as juridical documents and, for this reason, stuck to them so fervently.