Yakov Lazarev

This article examines the personality of Matvei Ivanovich Yavorsky, a leading Ukrainian Marxist historian of the 1920s. The article reveals the circumstances that led to the historian’s removal from leading academic positions in the early 1930s. The historiography created an image of Yavorsky as a scholar who suffered under the attacks of Moscow Marxist historians led by M. N. Pokrovsky and his disciple P. O. Gorin. Contrary to popular belief, the author shows that the story of Yavorsky’s downfall was a series of coincidences that led to the transformation of an ideological polemic into a campaign of harassment, followed by his arrest and death. The article explains why the debates of the time were not the cause of Yavorsky’s downfall. Patronage from the Ukrainian party leadership allowed Yavorsky to engage in aggressive polemics with his opponents (primarily Gorin). Discussions within the Ukrainian academic community led to a softening of Yavorsky’s position on conceptual differences (the driving forces of the revolution in Ukraine) rather than a public campaign against him. The author shows that Gorin and Pokrovsky did not have the administrative capacity to start harassing the scholar. The collapse of Yavorsky’s career turned out to be the result of the revealed facts of his biography (service in the Austro-Hungarian army). Yavorsky’s situation did not fit into any of the ideological campaigns of the time and came as a complete surprise to the local party leadership. Attempts to launch a campaign against Yavorsky (“yavorshchina”) were quashed by the Ukrainian SSR leadership, which gave the historian the opportunity to move to Leningrad. There, however, he was caught by the OGPU’s Operation Spring. During the investigation in Ukraine, people who had testified against Yavorsky were implicated in the case. This led to his arrest, imprisonment and death sentence.

On the example of the relationship between Prince A. D. Menshikov and his Ukrainian servants and clients it is planned to show how the fiefdom empire of the Menshikov was formed in Hetman Ukraine. It is explained why Menshikov and his servants became an important factor in the internal life of Hetmanat. All this created conditions for the integration of the children of the Cossack elite through court/military service. The author also shows how Menshikov’s fiefdom empire was destroyed and his Ukrainian clientele disintegrated.

The paper analyzes the importance of expert knowledge in the formation of a “negative” version of the “reunification” o f Ukraine with Russia, which was legitimized during the preparation for the 300th anniversary o f the Pereyaslav Rada. The author shows that in the implementation of the historical policy to perpetuate this event the party leadership was dependent on the expert opinion of “recognized” representatives of the scientific community, who were mainly concentrated in the structures of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In the mid-1950s A. M. Pankratova occupied the key position within this community. The combination o f Pankratova’s own views on Ukrainian history, her connections and disposition toward Ukrainian historians led to the “closure” of
discussions aimed not only at scientific but also public revision of the Ukrainian national narrative in its Soviet version. All this had an important impact on the monopolization of research on Ukrainian history by Ukrainian academic historians. The consequence was the continuation of the reproduction of romanticized ideas about the Cossack statehood and the negative role of the Russian state in its development.

The article presents the results of a historical and archival study carried out with the aim of reconstructing the composition of the cartographic fond of the Ural Mining Administration (Siberian Ober-bergamt) formed in the initial period of its activity in the 1720s–30s. The information potential of cartographic documents of this period is high: visual and graphic sources complement clerical narratives and allow the researcher to visualize the implementation of state measures in the field of industrial development of the territories from the Vyatka to the Far East. These documents are now a part of the fond 59 “Drawing office of the Ural Mining Administration.” Using methods of cartographic source studies, principles of historicism and system analysis, and tools of archival heuristics has allowed the author to reveal the history of the cartographic documents creation, to determine their number, composition, content, and authorship. Data from clerical sources of the first third of the 18th century has helped to identify the original composition of the cartographic documents of the Siberian ober-bergamt and to establish the degree of their preservation. As a result, it has been determined that out of 177 documents that were part of the “Drawing” mining administration in 1734, 66 cartographic documents have survived to this day. Additional research has shown that some of the documents were lost in the 1840s and in the 1920s. The publication presents a classification proposed by the author for the identified pictorial and graphic documents. These are the following key groups in the “Drawing” collection: general geographic (land maps), special or thematic (mine surveying, urban planning documentation, maps-schemes of land and forest disposal), and scientific and technical documents. The design features of each documents group are analyzed; the specifics of their content and design are disclosed. It is shown that studying the information potential of cartographic documents allows us a deeper understanding of the specifics and geography of the Ural mining administration activities in the initial period of its existence and helps to supplement the biographies of its officials.

This article offers contextual analysis of unpublished editorials from one of the issues of Voprosy Istorii academic journal, published in 1955. The issue focuses on the problems of studying the history of Ukraine and was written by N. L. Rubinstein, an outstanding Soviet historian and historiographer. The historian discusses the problems related to the history of Ukraine between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the formulation of the academic heritage of pre-revolutionary historians and the “school” of M. S. Grushevsky. The need to overcome a dependence on the conceptual heritage of “Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalist historiography”, which, according to the historian, practically leveled the achievements of Ukrainian scholars, is a red thread through the article. A kind of “familiar track effect” caused significant gaps in the study of Ukrainian 17th- and 18"'-century history, as well as the dominance of negative assessments in understanding the process of integration of Ukraine into the Russian state. For the first time in Soviet historical science, the unpubhshed editorial voiced the need to overcome the monopoly on the study of Ukrainian history held exclusively by institutions of the Ukrainian SSR. In this regard, Rubinstein paid special attention to the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which, in his view, had to be transformed into a key organisational centre for future research. All this suggests a potential divide in the academic study of Ukrainian history in the USSR and its conceptual rethinking, since Rubinstein was highlighting existing research issues. Via the case study of the unpublished Rubinstein editorial, the author demonstrates how the production of academic texts and regulation of research in the USSR were closely intertwined with administrative academic positions and personal connections of Moscow academics and Ukrainian historians (sometimes informally). Under these conditions, the directives of the party leadership at the centre and in the provinces fell into a certain dependence on the internal organsation of the academic community. Existing personal connections opened the way for a kind of academic lobbyism. This kind of lobbying paved the way for the entry of controversial ideas, interpretations, and conceptions that did not fit into the existing ideological framework in the difficult political conditions of the day.

«To the great good of Russia»: Project of the first Ukrainian university

in the context of integration of the Ukrainian Cossack elite
The article analyzes the project of creating the first Ukrainian university. Using previously
unknown sources, the author analyses the role of G.N. Teplov in promoting the project
aimed at effective integration of the Cossack elite and revealing its creative potential for
the benefit of the empire is shown. An explanation is given of the failure of this educational
initiative, which is related exclusively to the political choice of Hetman K.G. Razumovsky
and Catherine II's ideas about the education of the nobility. The author comes to a
controversial conclusion that the efforts of an imperial official did more to develop the
Ukrainian Enlightenment than the local elite.

В статье анализируется проект создания первого украинского университета. На осно-
вании ранее неизвестных источников доказывается авторство и Г.Н. Теплова и его
роль в продвижении проекта, направленного на эффективную интеграцию казацкой
элиты раскрытие ее творческого потенциала на пользу империи. Провал этой образо-
вательной инициативы связывается исключительно с политическим выбором гетма-
на К.Г. Разумовского и представлениями Екатерины II об образовании дворян. Автор
приходит к выводу о том, что стараниями имперского чиновника было сделано
больше для развития украинского Просвещения, нежели местной элитой.

In this article, the author explores the degree of effectiveness of cultural mechanisms implemented in the integration of the Ukrainian Cossack elite into the all-imperial nobility. According to the author, the mid-eighteenth century became a milestone in updating cultural integration mechanisms. Using multiple examples, the author demonstrates how the Cossack elite actively broke away from their cultural provincialism, sending their children to educational institutions of the imperial capitals, and subsequently replenished and formed the imperial noble intellectual elite. The author explains such changes by the influence of European ideological transfer, which led to the transformation of the worldview of the Russian ruling elite, and then, during the reign of Peter I, to the transformation of the Russian imperial court into one of the leading courts of Europe. The result of the said sociocultural processes was the transformation of the capital’s cultural and educational institutions into new centres for attracting leading Western professors and Ukrainian youth, who were looking for opportunities for creative and professional self-realisation. According to the author, another important incentive for the Cossack elite was the political ascent of two ordinary Ukrainian Cossacks, the brothers Alexei and Cyril Razumovsky. The Razumovsky brothers became a part of the new nobility, who ascended to power during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. For this reason, they became a key cultural channel of the new European worldview for the Cossack elite of Little Russia and an important resource for entering imperial educational institutions and forming the imperial nobility from the Cossack elite. Further, a debatable opinion is expressed in the text of the article, according to which the “Enlightenment discourse” characteristic of Russia and Europe of the time became the main cultural mechanism for the integration of the Cossack elite. According to this “Enlightenment Discourse”, at the top of the hierarchy of rationality, there was an enlightened cosmopolitan, an imperial nobleman, a member of a supranational community. The author maintains that the existence of such cultural mechanisms allowed the Cossack elite to break away relatively easily from their former Cossack identity.

The author demonstrates that the existing historical and sociological models explaining the peculiarities of control over the region by means of military forces and entralised bureaucracy, which exercised repressive management practices in relation to local (national) elites, do not correlate with real historical practices. According to the tsarist government’s initial plans, local self-governing corporations (the Zaporozhye Registry Army and cities that were self-governing according to Magdeburg Rights) were to be the main resources for holding sustainable control over the region, including as intermediaries in
tax collection The article notes that this trend intensified during the geopolitical competition over Little Russia (with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Crimean Khanate, and Ottoman Turkey) and as a consequence
of the political instability within the Cossack elites and the financial crisis of 1662 As a result, the Russian state could not fully financially support the few enclaves of tsarist (voivoda) administration in the region Referring to the history of Russian institutions in the region (voivoda offices) in the 1670s–1690s, the author demonstrates the reasons which prevented the tsar’s agents from
keeping the region under control and resisting unrest The article notes that for the sake of preserving even such limited control and maintaining the loyalty
of the Cossack elite, the tsarist government did not collect taxes from the local population between 1669 and 1722.


Автор показывает, что существующие историко-социологические модели, объясняющие специфику механизмов контроля над регионом за счет военной силы и централизованной бюрократии, генерировавшей по отношению к локальным (национальным) элитам репрессивные практики управления, слабо соотносятся с реальными историческими практиками. Изначально в представлениях царского правительства основными ресурсами поддержания устойчивого контроля над
регионом должны были стать местные амоуправляющиеся корпорации (Войско Запорожское реестровое и города, самоуправлявшиеся по магдебургскому праву), включая функции посредников при сборе налогов. Отмечается, что данный тренд усиливался еще заметнее в условиях геополитической конкуренции за «Малую Россию» с Речью Посполитой, Крымским ханством и Османской Турцией, а также в со-
четании с политической нестабильностью внутри казацких элит и финансовым кризисом 1662 г. В результате этого Российское государство
не могло в полной мере материально поддерживать немногочисленные анклавы царской (воеводской) администрации в регионе, стабилизировать их численность. На примере истории российских институций (воеводских приказных изб) за 70–90-е гг. XVII в. автор реконструирует причины, мешавшие царским агентам эффективно поддерживать
контроль в регионе и противостоять массовым и даже локальным выступлениям. Ради сохранения даже такого ограниченного контроля
и поддержания лояльности казацкой элиты царское правительство в 1669–1722 гг. отказалось от сбора налогов с местного населения.

This paper analyzes the projects and discussions of the first half of the 1760s., under which the Russian ruling elite to conceptualize place Ukrainian Cossack elite as part of the nobility, as well as the very Cossack elite to explain and prove their noble descent, what public reaction gave rise to these processes.
Исследование посвящено анализу проектов и дискуссий первой половины 1760-х гг., в рамках которых российская правящая элита рассматривала место украинской казацкой элиты в составе дворянства, а также тому, как сама казацкая элита объясняла и доказывала свое благородное происхождение, какую общественную реакцию порождали эти процессы.

Автор анализирует влияние политической активности городских корпораций, самоуправлявшихся по Магдебургскому праву, на российское военно-административное присутствие и процесс интеграции «Малой России» в состав России в 1654-1669 гг. Автор показывает, что, с одной стороны, политическая активность городских корпораций способствовала укреплению царской власти и, соответственно, разрушению казацкого проекта государственности. С другой стороны, в результате их действий, направленных на получение как можно большего количество налоговых привилегий, произошло сужение российского присутствия в регионе (после 1668 г.) и отказ от проведения налоговой реформы (вплоть до 1722 г.).
The author analyzes the impact of the political activity of municipal corporations, self-managed by the Magdeburg law to the Russian military and administrative presence and the integration of «Little Russia» in 1654-1669. The author shows that, on the one hand, the political activity of the municipal corporations contributed to the strengthening of tsar power and, consequently, the destruction of the Cossack state project On the other hand, as a result of their actions, to obtain the largest possible number of tax benefits, had led to a narrowing of the Russian presence in the region (after 1668) and the refusal of the tax reform (until 1722).

В статье разбирается проект экономических преобразований на Гетманской Украине И. Б. Вейсбаха 1733 г. Рассказывается о положении автора проекта в российской правящей элите и его взглядах на социально-политическое и экономическое положение Гетманской Украины. Показаны особенности культурного (религиозного) восприятия местного населения немцем на русской службе. Подробно описаны рекомендации Вейсбаха по улучшению благосостояния региона и пополнению казны Российской империи. Особое внимание уделено роли немецких колонистов в экономических преобразованиях на Гетманской Украине. Анализируется место проекта в контексте политики российского правительства в 1730-е гг.

The paper is devoted to the project of economic reforms in the Hetmanat by I. B. Weisbach (1733). It is told about the position of the author’s project among the Russian ruling elite, and his views on the socio-political and economic situation of the Hetmanat. The features of cultural (religious) perception of the local population of German in the Russian are investigated. Weisbach’s recommendations to improve the welfare of the region and replenish the treasury of the Russian Empire are described. Special attention is paid to the role of German colonists in the economic transformation in the Hetmanat.
The location of the project in the context of the policy of the Russian government is analyzed too.

The paper deals with questions regarding the formation of the modern Ukrainian nation and, particularly, the impact of the political activities and writings of G. A. Poletika (1725-1784). The author reconstructs the context of the genesis of Poletika's views of the history of "Malorossiya" and the Zaporozhian Host. The paper shows that the debates about the rights and duties of the nobility, in which Poletika was deeply involved, could not produce radically new political language capable of questioning the integrity of the Russian Empire. This, in turn, derives from the fact that preservation of "Malorossiyan rights" was an important element of political bargaining for the Ukrainian Cossack elite. The purpose of this bargain was to consolidate the privileged position of the Cossack elite. In Poletika's writings, the ideal of the "Hetmanate" or independent "Ukrainian Cossack state," as well as feelings about the loss of the "Ukrainian state," was absent, even though this concept was common to all Malorossiyan social groups. The Cossack past was considered by Poletika as an "age of misfortune," in contrast to the Polish times. The author concludes that there were significant ruptures in the process of building the modern Ukrainian nation.

В рецензии дан анализ одной из последних работ Сергея Плохия, известного украинского историка. В «Казацком мифе» Плохий постарался провести комплексный анализ политических и интеллектуальных механизмов строительства украинской нации, послуживших главным толчком к уничтожению Российской империи в 1917 г. и Советского Союза в 1991 г. Плохий доказывает, что интеллектуальным источником, стимулировавшим эти процессы, стало анонимное сочинение начала XIX в. «История русов». По мысли автора, данное сочинение появилось исключительно в результате репрессивной политики российского правительства, направленной против прав украинского казачества и местного дворянства. Заложенные в сочинении идеи подпитывали оппозиционные настроения украинских интеллектуалов дореволюционного и советского периодов, а также стали основной для идеологии современной Украины. В поисках оппозиционности среди украинской элиты Плохий упускает имевшие место развилки и разрывы, а также «русский след» в процессе конструирования украинской нации.

Согласно сложившемуся в историографии мнению, взаимоотношения российского правительства с украинской казацкой элитой в 1722–1727 гг. негативно сказались
на ее статусе благодаря деятельности чиновников Малороссийской коллегии. Подтверждений этому в источниках не было найдено. Политический опыт, полученный казацкой элитой, позволил ей занимать более самостоятельную позицию по отношению к Малороссийской коллегии в период реставрации гетманской должности.
According to the established trend in historiography, relations between the Russian government and the Ukrainian Cossack elite in 1722–1727 made a negative impact on the status of the latter. This was due to the activities of the governmental body called Collegium of Little Russia. There is no evidence in the sources for this assumption though. Political experience gained by the Cossack elite, encouraged them to take a more
independent stand during the restoration the post of Hetman.

This paper analyzes the fiscal and administrative mechanisms of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. The author tries to explain the reasons for the high level of poll tax collection. He argues that in the eighteenth century, one of the main conditions for the stable operation of the fiscal and administrative system was the presence of efficient non‑state tax collectors, in place long before the reforms of Peter I. To substantiate this point of view, the author reconstructs the fiscal history of the odnodvortsy, smallholders with an intermediary status between the nobility and the peasantry. After odnodvortsy were added to the direct tax census, state tax collectors became too few in number and unable to control them and collect taxes efficiently. This is explained by the fact that odnodvortsy did not have the peasantry’s tradition of mutual help and refused to redistribute the tax burden of insolvent smallholders among unrelated families. However, the government’s development of the bureaucratic apparatus in the eighteenth century failed to address the fiscal problem of odnodvortsy properly.

This paper analyses the modern historical courses (2014— 2015) describing the history of Ukraine (Little Russia, Malorussia), during the second half of the XVII—XVIII cc as part of the Russian state. The compilers of these courses have positioned their texts as a response to certain “official” versions of the history of Ukraine (Little Russia). The author seeks to understand whether the courses reflect the basic issues which are now being discussed by both Russian and Ukrainian historians. These include Malorussia’s political structure, the peculiarities and the influence of Russian governmental reforms on the region’s status and the Cossack elite. The article notes that these courses share a common view of the political structure of the Russian state and the reforms of Peter I, concluding that the autonomy of Ukraine (Malorussia) did not fit with these changes and had to be eliminated. According to the author, the approach described above denies the existence of the variability in the development of the region, and is based upon the disputed reconstruction and factual errors. He suggests that analysis of the reconstruction of Peter I and his successors reforms concerning Malorussia demonstrates the weak points of past observers. Special attention is noted to the reaction of the historical courses on critical reviews of their research. The author concludes that in Russian historiography the question of writing an academic history of Ukraine remains open to further disc

Для участия в Семилетней войне российское правительство планировало масштабные военно-мобилизационные мероприятия, сделав заметные послабления только для Малороссии и гетмана К. Г. Разумовского. Последний должен был выставить 1 тыс. компанейцев, а также 8 тыс. малороссиян для обеспечения логистики и тылового снабжения действующей армии (поставка волов, рекрутинг погонщиков), военно-оперативного управления (посыльные, курьеры) и бытовых условий (денщики) российской армии. Компанейцы – отборная часть малороссийского казачества – оказались укомплектованы хуже остальных казачьих формирований и теоретически могли участвовать только в одной «баталии Эгередорфской», на «других сражениях» Семилетней войны славу русскому оружию добывали другие казаки – донские, слободские, чугуевские. Когда-то многочисленное (по реестру 30 тыс. чел.) и боеспособное Войско Запорожское реестровое оказалось годным лишь в качестве поставщика вспомогательного персонала. Однако и с этой задачей украинской казацкой элите не удалось справиться в должной мере. Эти невоенные мобилизации заметным образом растягивались во времени, не успевая пополнять действующую армию, а также сопровождаясь недобором и присылкой кандидатов, не соответствовавших нужным требованиям (пожилые, увечные). В источниках отсутствуют свидетельства издевательств или массовой смертности эти малороссиян. Мобилизационные провалы в Малороссии отразились на политическом влиянии гетмана Разумовского. Среди российской правящей элиты и недавних друзей гетмана стали подниматься голоса о ревизии особого статуса Малороссии. Все это, наконец, должно было подтолкнуть гетмана к радикальному реформированию малороссийского казачества. Однако Разумовский думал только о собственном благосостоянии и оказался способен лишь на политические интриги и авантюры, стоившие ему политической карьеры, и приведшие к окончательному упадку малороссийского казачества.

В январе 1654 г. украинские казаки во главе с Б.М. Хмельницким принесли в Переяславле присягу на верность царю. Вслед за этим царские воеводы и гарнизоны появились сначала в Киеве, а позднее (с 1659 г.) и в других украинских городах. Дальнейший процесс установления российского военно-административного контроля над Украиной и выстраивания взаимоотношений с казацкой элитой и другими сословными группами нередко сопровождался изменами царскому престолу и способствовал изменениям состава и функционала царской администрации. Несмотря на военные неудачи, политическую нестабильность и неблагоприятную внешнеполитическую конъюнктуру 1660-х гг., Российскому государству удалось сохранить свое влияние и контроль над Левобережной Украиной. За счет каких механизмов и ресурсов (экономических, политических, социальных) царскому правительству удавалось поддерживать и сохранять контроль в этом непростом регионе? Как менялись функции и численность российских воевод и гарнизонов в украинских городах? Об этих сюжетах, а также истории российско-украинских отношений в 50-60-х гг. XVII вв. вы сможете прочитать в данном томе.
Книга предназначена для всех интересующихся отечественной историей вт. пол. XVII в. и историей российско-украинских отношений.