APPROVAL OF THE NOBILITY AND THE COSSACKS AS THE ANCESTORS OF THE STATE SERVICES IN UKRAINE AND POLAND, FROM KIN. XV ST. – TO THE LUBLIN UNION OF 1569

Abstract

The essence, content and features of the genesis and establishment of the nobility and Cossacks in Ukraine and Poland from the end of XV – before the formation of the Commonwealth after the Union of Lublin in 1569, as social classes, which became the source for the formation of state (civil) service in these states. Ukrainian, Polish and Russian sources of kin are analyzed. XV – XVI centuries. on the emergence of the nobility and its social stratification and the establishment of the Commonwealth as a noble state, as well as on the origin of the phenomenon of the Cossacks and the Cossack state in Ukraine. The views of domestic and foreign historians and lawyers on the essence, content and purpose of the nobility and the Cossacks in the society and state of that time are generalized. It is emphasized that the nobility in Poland originated in Ser. XIV century. «From medieval chivalry, quite different in its mass, thanks to the acquisition of privileges from the monarch, which were no longer granted to a particular group, but to the general chivalry». But already in the XV-XVI centuries. the gentry becomes the defining political and military force of the Polish-Lithuanian state, is divided according to its social and property status into magnates, middle gentry, petty gentry and impoverished gentry, the so-called «Nakedness». At the same time, it is the middle nobility, first of all, the nobilitated, who become the basis of the civil service. The origin of the word «Cossack», which began to be used among the Tatars and the local population in the XIII-XIV centuries, has Turkic roots, and meant a horseman, a landless mercenary, as a member of the horde. In the XV century «Cossacking» became a form of uniting the Tatars with other peoples in self-governing military organizations for crafts. And only at the beginning. XVI century Cossacks began to form into military detachments of Slavs under the leadership of Predislav Lyantskoronsky to defend the outskirts (Ukraine) from arbitrariness and looting of the «steppe» (nomads). Further development of the Cossacks in the Ukrainian lands contributed to the formation of a pro- European militarized model of public service and the development of the Cossack state.