1786 year. In the Russian Empire, the introduction of uniform forms of local government is being completed and the Second Little Russian Collegium is disbanded. 22 years earlier, the last hetman, Kirill Razumovsky, resigned, 11 years before the Zaporizhzhya Sich was liquidated. The autonomy of Little Russia ceased to exist.
I wrote something about this autonomy earlier: about the Ruin, and about Orlik and Mazepa. But nevertheless, from 1654 to 1786, that is, for 132 years, it took place, and Moscow, and later Petersburg suited.
And now, 132 years later, suddenly …
Why?
We must start with why it arose. Everything is simple here: we really are one people. The same Khmelnitsky liked to call himself the Prince of Russia, but with different laws. Too far departed from the orders of Kievan Rus, and Moscow, and Lithuania, and later Rzeczpospolita, consisting largely of Russian lands, and in different directions.
The situation was aggravated by the spontaneously formed management system after the War of Independence in 1648. For the Muscovite kingdom, this was an incredible anarchy, which was impossible to change or accept. So they integrated it, slowly and gradually merging what was torn apart in the XIII-XIV centuries. Plus external threats: now Poland is a state-vassal of the West with minimal independence, and the Crimean Tatars are nothing more than an element of the political game of the “big and strong”. Things were different then.
Rzeczpospolita, despite anarchy and defeats, was the state that was kicked out of the capital of Russia only in 1612. And the Crimean Khanate, a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, is the number one threat to Russia. And the Cossacks, both Zaporozhye and Hetman, were protection, both of the South - from the Tatars, and the West - from possible attacks of the Poles. But time passed, and what was a formidable force at the beginning of the 17th century gradually lost its significance.
First reason
The first Mazepa became the nail in the coffin of the Hetmanate, or rather, the political instability of the government system, in which the hetman elected by a narrow circle of people collects his taxes, has his own army and laws. And at the same time he looks at the Rzeczpospolita, or rather, at its management system, where "every nobleman in the garden is equal to the voivode in everything."
The democracy of the elites took deep roots in Little Russia and served as a bad example for the Moscow nobility, which wanted to do something similar during the accession of Anna Ioanovna. And the reliability of the hetmans was not that great.
1. Mazepa - went over to the side of the enemy.
2. Skoropadsky - was under the complete control of Peter, with which he was very dissatisfied, however, he did not go beyond words.
2. Polubotok - led a series of intrigues to strengthen the independence of the hetmans, died in prison.
3. Apostle - managed to come to an agreement with Moscow, tried to reform the Hetmanate by introducing clear laws and turning Cossack (in fact, militia) regiments into a regular army, but died without pushing through his reforms.
As a result, the Little Russian Collegia arose, as a kind of tool that did not allow the foreman to get into foreign policy. The restoration of the position of hetman is a historical curiosity that arose at the whim of Elizabeth Petrovna, for the sake of her secret husband's brother, Kirill Rozum. It ended sadly.
The second reason
And it was The second reason liquidation of the autonomy of Little Russia.
It is actually very simple - the internal situation. A funny document has survived - "On the troubles that occur now from the abuse of rights and customs, which were confirmed by letters in Malorussia."
In the same way, the number of the Cossacks was greatly diminished; for this can be confirmed for certain that today Little Russia has barely fifteen directly armed lists, and at least twenty thousand can put up, and none of the electives can be nominated; according to the articles, they should have 60,000 Cossacks, except for those who left for the Zadneprovskaya side, and all Cossacks should have about 150,000. All Little Russian Cossacks are sued by the right of the gentry; but because they serve from their own soil, this seems to be a natural right that the Cossack should not sell his soil, so that through this the service of the Tsar would not diminish; and when he has a need to sell, it is not otherwise, like the Cossack, and not to the foreman and not to the polite, about which there is a decree. But they interpreted the right to the Cossacks: supposedly a Cossack, by virtue of the Statute, sec. 3, art. 47, can sell everything to anyone he wants; that is why almost all the soils were bought by the Cossacks.
The sergeant major, being initially elected, gradually turned into a hereditary gentry, buying up land not only from peasants, but also from Cossack and "eating" two-thirds of the Cossack army in a hundred years.
In addition, corruption:
So the right to honor Little Russia, as the main disorder in Little Russia; it infuses them with imaginary liberty and difference from other loyal subjects to Your Imperial Majesty; it makes a judge a covetous man unparalleled and a ruler of the people, and courts corrupt; it leads poor ordinary Little Russians into oppression; it, in the end, and the commanding chief makes darkness and punctuation of the truth to provide a useful resolution.
And transcendental paternalism.
The sergeant general has a way to determine the colonels, and the colonels and foremen of the centurions, because the choice of the centurion is glorified only by the choice, and in fact there is an exact definition of the person from the foremen. The election to the centurion taking place at this time takes place in the following way. When only a report from a hundred to a regiment, and from a regiment to a military office, comes that a centurion in a hundred has died; then the foremen hurry, before the hetman finds out about it, to send from the regimental chancellery a person known and necessary to them on the board, until a new one is determined, and this, as an unimportant matter, happens without the knowledge of their chief, but only in the name of the commander of the regiment, the colonel.
And such an outrage at hand began to interfere frankly and required correction. And the correction was supposed to fit this territory under the general imperial laws, so as not to produce entities. Moreover, the attempts to reform the Apostle and Razumovsky failed, the foreman was satisfied as it is, and the officials sent from St. Petersburg quickly became participants in corruption schemes.
Third reason
Was and third reason - external.
In 1772, the first partition of Poland took place, after which the Rzeczpospolita finally loses its significance, respectively, and the threat from the Poles becomes zero. The southern threat quickly disappeared, in 1774 the Kuchuk-Kainardzhiyskiy peace was concluded, according to which the Crimean Khanate de facto became a vassal of Russia.
The Cossack army became simply unnecessary, because Little Russia itself was in the deep rear. Accordingly, the elimination of the Little Russian Cossacks became a matter of time.
The Cossacks partly moved to the Kuban, partly fled to Turkey, and the Hetman's Cossacks simply disbanded, with the formation of regular army regiments, which surpassed the Cossack regiments by their heads in combat capability. This is what fourth reason - low combat capability of the Cossack army. In the realities of the 18th century, what was effective a hundred years ago looked just pathetic and served more as a structure of local government than really regiments.
Moreover, the foreman, oddly enough, was only for, received the Russian nobility and after the introduction of serfdom in Little Russia turned into landowners. All the privileges of the Charter to the nobility were extended to the former elders. The Cossacks did not remain offended either - all those on the register remained in the Cossack estate and were personally free.
So, in general, the elimination of the Hetmanate took place quietly, peacefully and with the approval of the privileged strata of the population.
Outcome
To summarize, the Hetmanate has simply outlived its time. A long, peaceful life turned the Cossack regiments into a caricature of themselves, and the internal structure, with its corruption, incomprehensible laws and nepotism, looked like a game and anachronism even in not the most prosperous Russian Empire.
Moreover, albeit formally, the elective foreman was simply eager to change his "democratic" posts for titles of nobility. This coincided with the elimination of the external threat and the establishment of a uniform order in all regions of the empire.
And Ukrainian historians are surprised who are looking for Great Russian chauvinism in the actions of the German woman and supporter of the Enlightenment Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst (in the baptism of Ekaterina Alekseevna) and her favorite Gritska Nechesa (in the world - the Most Serene Prince Potemkin).
Meanwhile, they were simply putting things in order, and their actions (both the dispersal of the corrupt Hetmanate, and the transfer of the Sich to the Kuban) resulted in the explosive development of the region. More precisely - the regions: next to Little Russia in the wild steppe, New Russia grew rapidly, by the will of the very same Catherine and Gregory.
