THE STATE-FORMING PROJECT OF J. VERESHYNSKY: HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the features of the state-building project of J. Vereshchynskyi, in particular the idea of creating the Transdnieper Principality, reflected in the relevant treatises, letters, works, etc. It is proved that Ukrainian political opinion and a national political and legal ideology were formed on Ukrainian territory in the sixteenth century, which was rich in active social and political events and was in difficult geopolitical conditions, in particular under the influence of the Renaissance and Reformation. Moreover, the author states that J. Vereshchynskyi who first presented the idea of the Cossack state, substantiated its autonomy with clearly defined territories and a system of socio-political values, which used to be the basis of the socio-political thinking of Ukrainians for a long time. The author discovered that J. Vereshchynsky proposed a project to reorganize the Zaporizhzhya Army on the basis of a mercenary territorial army, comparing Ukrainian Cossacks with European crusaders and calling them noble knights for the purpose of defending the southern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from Tatars and Turks. The unifying factor was supposed to be the idea of Christian unity in order to stop the Turkish-Tatar invasion. It is emphasized that J. Vereshchynskyi tried to combine the interests of the Cossacks and the crown, offering to ensure the Cossacks an independent place in the social structure, that is, a kind of variant of the country's state development. The author highlights that the work of J. Vereshchynskyi as well as his ideas were dramatically different from the ideas of his contemporaries, they had a revolutionary character in the political realities of the time. It has been noted that there is no unanimity of opinion among researchers of J. Vereshchynskyi's work regarding the assessment of his state-building ideas. For instance, some authors consider him a supporter of Polish expansion, and his ideas utopian, some accuse him of insufficient direct connection with the national idea. The author justifies the need for further research into the historical prerequisites and peculiarities of the political and legal ideas of statehood during the period of the formation of the Cossack state, in particular the idea of the autonomy of the Cossack territory of S. Nalivayka, the political concept of S. Pekalid, the concept of statesmanship by M. Pashkovsky, as well as the identification of dynamics and features in these concepts of statesmanship in relation to nature of political and legal ideas of this period.