Palankа administranive structure of the Black Sea Cossack Army

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the local problems of the revival of the palanka system, peculiar to the lands of Zaporozhian Sich in the Ochakiv steppe during the stay of the Black Sea Cossack Army. On the basis of the published materials of the State Archive of the Krasnodar Territory and the researches of P. Korolenko, the administrative-territorial structure of the Black Sea Cossack Army during its stay in the Bugo-Dniester borderland (1790-1792) was analyzed and the functional duties of a palanquin colonel were characterized. The lower part of the Ochakiv Steppe, the Bugo-Dniester confluence, during the stay of the Black Sea Cossack Army, was divided into three palanquins – Podnistrian (central), Berezan and Kinburn, headed by palanquin colonels with assistant foremen. The palanka colonel was responsible for the preservation of military property and for increasing the revenues that went to the military treasury. Through the foresters, he protected the military forests, releasing wood to the residents only for building houses; sold part of the fishing factories and sold alcoholic beverages to outsiders with payment of the purchase price to the military treasury, leased free land to "outsiders" for cattle grazing, collected a tax from gypsies who spent the night on military territory, etc. He embodied in the palanquin the power of Kosh, in fact, the power of the Cossack community.