MULTIVARIANCE OF HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE (THROUGH THE EXAMPLE OF SLOBOZHANSHCHINA OF 16TH-17TH CENTURIES)

Abstract

The history of modern Ukraine is mainly the history of the regions, each of which has its own, different from the others, historical destiny. This statement can be fully applied to Slobozhanshchyna (Kharkiv region). What is Slobozhanshchina – is it an «artifact» of the Ukrainian nation or a regional civilization (a special type of culture, including a political one), which has existed for several centuries and absorbed the culture of many nations, including Ukrainian? To answer this question it is quite essential to study the process of the Slobodskiy Region formation.

It is considered that it took place in the 16^th and early 17^thcenturies and covers the period from the annexation of the Seversky Donets River Basin to the Russian state as a result of the Russian-Lithuanian War (1500–1503) to the formation of the Sloboda-Ukrainian province in 1765. This process was marked by the presence of the Seversky Donets in composition of the Seversky land in the late 16^th and early 17^thcenturies.

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to study the process of the Slobodskiy region formation when its future territory was part of the Seversk land in the late 16th –early 17th centuries. The objectives of the work should display the annexion of the Seversky Donets into the Seversky land as a result of the Russian-Lithuanian war of 1500–1503, study characteristics of the social structure of the Seversky Cossacks and their participation in the events of the Time of Troubles.

The war between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1500–1503 was recognized by contemporary authors as a turning point in the history of the region. The official entry of the Slobodsky Region into the Russian state was secured in the conditions of an armistice between the Russian state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1503, and then the «Eternal Peace» between them in 1508. After the region was annexed to Russia, its official name «Sloboda Ukraine Gosudareva» was formed. It became used by the Russian government both in domestic and in international practice. The term «Gosudareva» meant that this territory was an integral part of the Russian state and was subject to the authority of the Russian tsar, the «Sovereign». The term «Slobodskaya» was derived from the name «settlement». To attract new settlers here, the Russian state exempted settlements from taxes and duties and introduced other benefits. The term «Ukraine» testified that this territory of the Russian state was a special border region.

All these features of Slobozhanshchina formed gradually. The entry of the future Sloboda region into the Russian state at the beginning of the 16^th century meant its belonging to the Seversk land – a region formed on the basis of the ancient Russian tribal union of the northerners.This region, based on today’s realities, is difficult to consider as purely Ukrainian, since in the 16th – 17th centuries not only Chernihiv, Putivl, Lyubech, Novgorod-Seversky were considered as northern territories, but also Bryansk, Starodub, Rylsk and Gomel as well. Seversk land, which was part of the Grand Duchy of Chernigov, and then the principalities of Bryansk, Novgorod-Seversky, Starodubsky, etc., occupied an intermediate, «middle» position between the centers of consolidation of Eastern Slavism – Vladimir-Suzdal and Galitsko-Volynsky principalities, and then – in the 14-15 centuries – between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It is this distinctiveness that determined the allocation of this territory to a special region.

In the Lithuanian period of its history (the 14^th andearly 15^thcenturies), sevruks learned to combine fishing, hunting and boating with hiring for border guards, first in Lithuania, then in Russia. That is why the Russian government in the 16^thcentury widely used Putillassevruksto carry out guard service in the territory of the future Slobozhanshchina.

In the second half of the 16^th– early 17^th centuries significant changes began to occur in the life of the Seversk land. As it was quite necessary to fulfillfurther development of the territory, there was a necessity of permanent, rather than temporary settlers, primarily engaged in the defense of the southern border of Russia. At the end of the 16^thcentury, the migratory wave from the central and central black-earth regions of Russia literally spilled out onto the sparsely populated Putyvl region, which to a certain extent swallowed the local sevruks.