Dubitando: Studies in History and Culture in Honor of Donald Ostrowski

Should Cossacks Be Allowed to Sell Their Land?

Dubitando: Studies in History and Culture in Honor of Donald Ostrowski. Brian J. Boeck, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2012, 487–502.       Should Cossacks Be Allowed to Sell Their Land?   John LeDonne       This  question  concerns  a  matter  discussed  at  the  highest  levels  of  the  imperial   government   between   1821   and   1828.   It   had   a   very   innocuous   beginning.   A   Cossack   from   Poltava,   Iashchenko,   bequeathed   to   two   churches   a   certain   amount  of  land,  some  inherited,  some  purchased.  The  Left-­‐‑Bank  (Little  Rus-­‐‑ sian)1  Cossacks  being  considered  at  the  time  a  category  of  state  peasants,  the   bequest  was  submitted  to  the  provincial  treasury  chamber,  which  had  juris-­‐‑ diction  over  them  and  over  state  domains  in  general.  Instead  of  simply  can-­‐‑ celing  the  bequest  on  the  ground  that  the  Cossack  had  not  followed  the  ukaz   of   January   18192   requiring   the   relevant   documents   (darstvennye   zapisi)   to   be   submitted  to  the  Synod  in  order  to  seek  the  emperor’s  approval,  the  chamber   reported   the   matter   to   the   finance   minister,   and   this   simple   matter   was   quickly  transformed  into  the  larger  issue  of  the  Cossacks’  right  to  dispose  of   their  land.  The  minister  brought  it  to  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  The  Senate   sought  the  opinion  of  the  military  governor  of  Little  Russia  in  Poltava.  When   its  Third  Department,  responsible  for  Little  Russian  affairs,  could  not  reach  a   unanimous  decision,  it  turned  the  matter  over  to  the  general  assembly,  which   raised  additional  questions.  The  military  governor  was  asked  for  a  clarifica-­‐‑ tion.  The  matter  then  went  to  the  committee  of  ministers,  which  resolved  that   it  belonged  to  the  State  Council.  The  minister  of  justice  secured  an  imperial   order  to  send  the  entire  file  to  the  Council,  which  discussed  it  in  October  and   November  1828.  Rather  than  following  the  tortuous  course  of  the  dispute  be-­‐‑ fore  it  reached  the  Council,  which  functioned  as  an  advisory  legislature  of  last   resort,  I  will  outline  and  expand  on  the  views  of  the  two  main  protagonists,   the  military  governor  and  the  finance  minister.3                                                                                                                             1  In  this  article  I  am  using  the  term  “Little  Russian”  as  it  was  used  in  documents  from   the   early   19th   century.   “Little   Russia”   means   here   the   former   Hetmanate,   the   prov-­‐‑ inces  of  Chernigov  and  Poltava.  It  does  not  include  Kharkov  province.  Therefore,  the   term  “Little  Russian  Cossacks”  does  not  include  the  Kharkov  (“Slobodskie”)  Cossacks.   2  Polnoe   sobranie   zakonov   Rossiiskoi   Imperii   (hereafter,   PSZ),   vol.   36,   no.   27622   (St.   Petersburg:  Gos.  Tip.,  1831–1916),  17.     3  The  document  outlining  the  position  of  individuals  and  institutions  is  “O  pravakh   Malorossiiskikh  kazakov,”  in  Zapiski  Imperatorskogo  Odesskogo  obshchestva  istorii  i  drev-­‐‑ nostei  26  (1906):  41–67.   488 JOHN LEDONNE The  military  governor,  Lt.-­‐‑Gen.  Prince  Nikolai  Repnin-­‐‑Volkonskii,  born  in   1778,  belonged  to  one  of  the  great  families  of  the  Naryshkin-­‐‑Trubetskoi  net-­‐‑ work  with  a  strong  base  in  the  southern  provinces.4  His  grandfather  was  the   well-­‐‑known  Field  Marshal  Nikolai  Repnin,  married  to  Ekaterina  Kurakina,  a   descendant   of   Boris   Kurakin,   Peter   I’s   brother-­‐‑in-­‐‑law.   He   had   been   ambas-­‐‑ sador   and   de   facto   viceroy   of   Poland   in   Warsaw   (1764–69);   a   forceful   com-­‐‑ mander   in   Catherine   II’s   two   Turkish   wars;   governor   general   of   Lithuania,   Estland,  and  Livland;  and  was  once  described  as  a  model  of  magnificence  in   the  old  boyar  style.5  But  the  Repnin  family,  always  small,  became  extinct  in   the  male  line  with  the  marshal’s  death  in  1801.  It  survived  only  in  his  daugh-­‐‑ ter  Aleksandra,  who  married  Prince  Grigorii  Volkonskii,  the  military  gover-­‐‑ nor  of  Orenburg  (1803–l7).   Before  his  death,  the  old  marshal  arranged  the  marriage  of  his  grandson   Nikolai   Repnin-­‐‑Volkonskii   with   Varvara   Razumovskaia,   granddaughter   of   Kirill  Razumovskii,  the  last  hetman  of  Little  Russia  (1750–64).  The  countess,   who  died  in  1864  at  the  age  of  94,  shared  her  family’s  fortune  with  her  hus-­‐‑ band,  who,  like  his  grandfather,  lived  in  high  style,  and  once  in  1814,  when  he   was   governor   general   of   Saxony,   spent   one   million   rubles   on   a   salary   of   12,000.6  Both  are  buried  in  Iagotin,  near  Piriatin  in  Poltava  province.  The  gov-­‐‑ ernor  was  a  decent  and  courageous  man  and  a  supporter  of  the  starshina,  that   stratum  of  Cossack  society  which  had  risen  to  prominence  in  the  18th  century,   only  to  destroy  the  old  Cossack  order  in  order  to  consolidate  its  own  political   and  social  power  in  the  hetmanate.  He  was  also  related  to  his  two  immediate   predecessors   in   Little   Russia,   Prince   Aleksei   Kurakin   (1801–07)   and   Prince   Iakov  Lobanov-­‐‑Rostovskii...