Cossack Hetmanate

The Cossack Hetmanate (Ukrainian: Гетьма́нщина, romanized: Hetmanshchyna; see other names), officially the Zaporozhian Host (Ruthenian: Войско Zапорожскоε; Ukrainian: Військо Запорозьке, romanized: Viisko Zaporozke; Latin: Exercitus Zaporoviensis), was a stratocratic Zaporozhian Cossack state established by Registered Cossacks in Dnieper Ukraine. Its territory was located mostly in region of Central Ukraine, as well as in parts of Belarus and southwestern Russia, and at different points it also incorporated the territories of Zaporozhian Sich to the south. The Hetmanate existed between 1649 and 1764, although its administrative-judicial system persisted until 1781. In different periods it was a vassal of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire.

The Hetmanate was founded in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Treaty of Zboriv, signed on August 18, 1649 by Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host) and Adam Kysil (representing Crown Forces), as a result of Khmelnytsky Uprising. Establishment of vassal relations with the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Pereiaslav of 1654 is considered a benchmark of the Cossack Hetmanate in Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian historiography. The second Pereiaslav Council in 1659 restricted the independence of the Hetmanate, and from the Russian side there were attempts to declare agreements reached with Yurii Khmelnytsky in 1659 as nothing more than the "former Bohdan's agreements" of 1654. The 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo, conducted without any representation from the Cossack Hetmanate, established the borders between the Polish and Russian states, dividing the Hetmanate in half along the Dnieper and putting the Zaporozhian Sich under a formal joint Russian-Polish administration.

After a failed attempt to break the union with Russia by Ivan Mazepa in 1708, the whole area was included into the Kiev Governorate, and Cossack autonomy was severely restricted. Catherine II of Russia officially abolished the institute of the Hetman in 1764, and from 1764 to 1781, the Cossack Hetmanate was incorporated as the Little Russia Governorate headed by Pyotr Rumyantsev, with the last remnants of the Hetmanate's administrative system abolished in 1781.

The official name of the Cossack Hetmanate was the Zaporizhian Host / Army of Zaporozhia (Ukrainian: Військо Запорозьке). The historiographic term Hetmanate (Ukrainian: Гетьманщина, romanized: Hetmanshchyna, Polish: Hetmańszczyzna, lit. 'Hetman state') was coined in the late 19th century, deriving from the word hetman, the title of the general of the Zaporizhian Army. Despite not being centered in Zaporizhia, the host's name (lit. 'beyond the rapids') was derived from Cossacks in Southern Ukraine centered on the Zaporizhian Sich, as well as a general name for Ukrainian Cossacks as a political and military organization.

The name "Ukraine", initially referring to the Polish palatinates of Kyiv, Bratslav and Chernihiv, was widely used in reference to the lands of the Hetmanate, although its meaning was rather poetic than formal, and denoted the generic homeland of the Cossacks.. The Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk (1710) refers to the Hetmanate as "Little Russia" ("кордони Малої Росії, Вітчизни нашої", lit. 'borders of Little Russia, our Fatherland') and "Ukraine" (Ukrainian: Україна, Latin: Ucraina); the latter name is found in various Polish, Russian, Ottoman and Arab sources. Following the Khmelnytsky Uprising in 1648, the name "Little Russia" gained ground and was used in relations with Moscow, while internally, the territory was called Ukraine and its inhabitants as the "Ruthenian nation". In Russian diplomatic correspondence, it was called Little Russia (Russian: Малороссия, romanized: Malorossiya) and the Little Russia Office was created as a government department. The Cossack Hetmanate was called the "Country of Ukraine" (Turkish: اوكراینا مملكتی, romanized: Ukrayna memleketi) by the Ottoman Empire. In the text of Treaty of Buchach, it is mentioned as the Ukrainian State (Polish: Państwo Ukraińskie). The map of Ukraine made by Johann Homann, refers to it as 'Ukraine, or the Land of Cossacks" (Latin: Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum). The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin also talks about "Ukraine" rather than "Cossack Hetmanate" in his poem Poltava describing events around the 1709 Battle of Poltava.^{[citation needed]}

The founder of the Hetmanate, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, declared himself the ruler of the Ruthenian state to the Polish representative Adam Kysil in February 1649. His contemporary Metropolitan Sylvestr Kosiv recognized him as "the leader and the commander of our land". In his letter to Constantin Șerban (1657), he referred to himself as Clementiae divinae Generalis Dux Exercituum Zaporoviensium.

Grand Principality of Ruthenia was the proposed name of the Cossack Hetmanate as part of the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth.

After many successful military campaigns against the Poles, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky made a triumphant entry into Kyiv on Christmas 1648, where he was hailed as a liberator of the people from Polish captivity. In February 1649, during negotiations in Pereiaslav with a Polish delegation, Khmelnytsky made it clear to the Poles that he wanted to be the Hetman of a Ruthenia stretching to Chelm and Halych, and build with the Tatar's help. He warned them he intended to resume his military campaign.