Державотворчі процеси у Південній Київщині XVI – середини XVII ст.: етносоціальний компонент

Abstract

Introduction. The article states the historical processes in the Southern Kyiv region, characteristic of the early modern era and the period when the birth of those state-building and ethnosocial processes that led to the emergence of the Ukrainian nation. In particular, we are talking about the genesis, historical evolution and establishment of the Ukrainian Cossacks on the territory of South Districts of Kyivan Province in the 16th – the first half of the 17th, that is, until 1648, when the National Liberation War of the Ukrainian people began, which was led by the Cossacks as a new ethnosocial elite of the Ukrainian community. In the middle of the 17th century, the processes of ethnosocial (essentially national) consolidation developed more dynamically in the Ukrainian community. The main attraction factor in such circumstances was the Ukrainian Cossack and, above all, its most politically active part, concentrated within the boundaries of the Southern Kyiv region. Purpose. To analyze how ethnosocial processes influenced the formation of the state-building paradigm among the Ukrainian Cossacks just in the day before the revolution of the middle of the 17th century. Results. The geopolitical importance of the South Districts of Kyivan Province in the 16th – the first half of the 17th century steadily increases, not least as a result of the international activity of the Ukrainian Cossacks. In the first half of the 17th century Ukrainian Cossacks became an indispensable political subject of international relations in Central-Eastern Europe. An important place in this was the relative autonomy of the Southern Kyiv region. More and more noticeable was the declarative nature of the Cossacks’ subjects to the royal authorities. Such political independence of the Ukrainian Cossacks significantly annoyed the government circles of the Rzecz Pospolita (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). An important factor in the formation of the state-building paradigm of the Cossacks was the process of transformation of the ethnosocial structure of the Ukrainian community. The Cossacks became its new ethnosocial (national) elite. As in the ethnosocial focus, it concentrates the main parameters of the new life model of the Ukrainian early modern nation, including the state-building idea. At the same time, Cossacks developed new elements of Ukrainian ethnic identity, thanks to flexible contacts with the traditions of other communities, whose representatives replenished the ranks of Ukrainian Cossacks. Conclusion. The most important consequence of ethnosocial processes in the Southern Kyiv region in the 16th – the first half of the 17th century there was a significant politicization of Ukrainian ethnicity. This had a tangible positive impact on the process of Ukrainian state formation. At the same time, this became an important basis for the formation of a qualitatively new type of ethnosocial organism of Ukrainians – an early modern nation. Our main conclusion is that the Ukrainian Cossacks themselves played a primary role in this ethnosocial (in content, character and consequences) process.