The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

elites, émigré Russian noblemen, and religious institutions, continued in the
baroque manner popular in Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s time; over the century styles
integrated European rococo and neoclassical, executed by Italian, German, Rus-
sian, and Ukrainian architects in a full imperial medley.
Russian presence should not be discounted, of course. Russia stationed 50– 75
regiments in Left Bank Ukraine, draining local resources to support them; it sent
thousands of Cossacks to battle for the empire. In Minister Ivan Shuvalov’s empire-
wide cameralist reforms of 1755, internal tariffs across the empire and customs at
borders between the Hetmanate and Russia were abolished, depriving the Hetma-
nate of revenue and benefiting Russian merchants. Publication of books in Ukrain-
ian language was not abolished, but supervised. The most direct Russian influence
was felt in the Orthodox Church, which tried to regulate Ukrainian religious
painting, architecture, and art to limit western artistic innovations.
By the 1760s, led by the dynamic HetmanKyrylo Rozumovsky, the Hetmanate
was working on a major reform of the judicial system, bringing it closer to the Polish-
Lithuanian system, with a more regularized hierarchy of venues, streamlined proced-
ure according to the Lithuanian Statute, and better division of civil and criminal
courts. Hetman and Cossack elites were energized for other reforms of the Hetma-
nate’s educational and military systems. At the same time, Catherine II came to power
with radically different ideas about empire and region. She abolished the Hetmanate’s
autonomies in two waves of reform, not as punishment for acts of opposition, but
acting on a cameralist vision of empire-wide standardization. In 1764 she abolished
the hetman’soffice, replacing it with a Little Russian Collegium under Governor-
General Petr Rumiantsev. For the next decade, despite Russia’sinvolvementin
uprisings on the Right Bank and a Turkish War (1768–74), Rumiantsev systemat-
ically drew the Hetmanate into the Russian imperial system and the Cossacks into
more regular military status: he introduced aflat ruble tax to support Russian troops
and a system for their billeting in the Hetmanate; he created strongerfiscal collection
and budgeting procedures linked with the imperial Treasury; he created a special
guards unit and introduced more Russian-style military organization to the Cossacks.
The second stage of abolition of Ukrainian autonomies followed with Catherine
II’s administrative reforms, spurred by the wave of unrest across the borderlands
already detailed in relation to Russia’s abolition of the Zaporozhian Sich. The
reforms were intended to create a stronger governmental presence by doubling
the number of gubernii and creating a denser network of local offices. Introduced in
the Hetmanate in 1779, the reforms, on the basis of a census completed in 1781,
abolished the Hetmanate’s ten regimental districts in favor of three units called
not gubernii as in the Russian center, butnamestnichestva(Kyiv, Chernigov, and
Novgorod-Severskii) divided into a total of forty-six districts, most replicating
existing units (povity). They were given, nevertheless, thefiscal, administrative,
and judicial organs of the reform. Ukraine’s long tradition of local elections of office
holders was abolished by the reform’s practice of having offices appointed by the
center or elected by single social groups.
Russia further pursued homogenization on the military and ecclesiastical fronts.
In 1783 Cossack regiments were abolished and rank andfile Cossacks were blended


Western Borderlands in the Eighteenth Century 111
Free download pdf