Left-Bank Ukraine

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Left-Bank Ukraine

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Left-Bank Ukraine (Лівобережжя; Livoberezhia). A territorial-administrative-geographic

region consisting of the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper River. In the 17th and 18th
centuries Left-Bank Ukraine became a major Ukrainian economic, political, and cultural
center administered as 10 Cossack regimental districts (Starodub regiment, Chernihiv
regiment, Nizhyn regiment, Pryluky regiment, Lubny regiment, Hadiach regiment, Kyiv
regiment, Pereiaslav regiment, Myrhorod regiment, and Poltava regiment) that formed the
Hetman state (see Regimental system). By extension Slobidska Ukraine, which had a
comparable social and economic order, sometimes has been regarded as part of the Left-Bank
realm, even though it was never linked administratively with the Hetman state and had a
separate historical development. The Left-Bank lands have commonly been considered the
heartland of Ukrainian ethnic territory. The former Left-Bank Ukraine now constitutes
Chernihiv oblast and Poltava oblast, the left banks of Kyiv oblast and Cherkasy oblast, the
city of Kyiv and its right-bank environs, northern Dnipropetrovsk oblast, and northwestern
Sumy oblast. The Starodub regiment lands are now within Briansk oblast in the Russian
Federation.

The Dnieper River waterway provided a specific geographic focus for the Left-Bank region as
its dividing line with Right-Bank Ukraine. The formal partitioning of the two regions made
the Dnieper a frontier zone and thereby compelled the Left Bank to reorient itself politically
and economically toward Moscow. The Dnieper regained importance only after 1795, when
Right-Bank Ukraine had been incorporated in toto into the Russian Empire.

The establishment of the Left Bank as a distinctive geographic and political entity came as an
offshoot of the Cossack-Polish War of 1648–57. Following Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's
death (1657) the Cossack polity was racked by dissension between officers and rank-and-file
Cossacks, and between pro- and anti-Polish political orientations. The dissention produced a
split in Cossack ranks that acquired a specific geographical dimension when the Left-Bank
regiments refused to follow the acting hetman, Yurii Khmelnytsky, who supported the Poles
against Moscow at the Battle of Chudniv (1660), and elected Yakym Somko as their leader.
Khmelnytsky remained hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine, thereby initiating the division of
Ukraine into Left and Right banks. The division soon acquired additional significance in

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Left-Bank Ukraine

international affairs as a result of the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667), which established the
Dnieper River as the dividing line between Russian and Polish zones of influence.

In 1668 the Right-Bank Ukraine hetman, Petro Doroshenko, successfully united the Cossack
regiments on both banks of the Dnieper River under his leadership. Internal Right-Bank
conflicts and external threats from Poland and Turkey, however, forced his return to the
Right Bank. In the interim the acting Left-Bank hetman, Demian Mnohohrishny, was forced
by circumstance to break with Doroshenko and swear allegiance to Moscow. Thenceforth the
Left Bank remained continuously under Russian influence.

In 1676 Hetman Ivan Samoilovych invaded Right-Bank Ukraine, defeated Petro Doroshenko,
and proclaimed himself hetman of both banks. In 1678, while retreating before a Turkish
advance, Samoilovych forcefully attempted to remove the population of Right-Bank Ukraine
to the Left Bank and Slobidska Ukraine.

The Eternal Peace of 1686 between Russia and Poland cemented the previous Treaty of
Andrusovo and confirmed Poland's claim to Right-Bank Ukraine. Russia obtained undisputed
control over Left-Bank Ukraine, consisting of the Hetman state and a portion of the
Zaporizhia. In 1703 Hetman Ivan Mazepa occupied Right-Bank Ukraine and was briefly
hetman of both banks.

In the 18th century the autonomy of Left-Bank Ukraine was steadily eroded until the Hetman
state was abolished in 1782. From 1796 to 1802 the Left Bank was reconstituted as an
administrative territory in Little Russia gubernia.

Although the Left Bank had ceased to function as an administrative unit, certain features
continued to distinguish it as unique for the remainder of the imperial period. The Left-Bank
gentry, the former Cossack starshyna and its descendants, contributed disproportionately to
the formation of a conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia from the end of the 18th to the early
20th centuries. The life of the agricultural population was also distinctive in Left-Bank
Ukraine. There free peasants and state peasants, the descendants of rank-and-file Cossacks,
formed a significant portion of the rural population, and landlords' serfs were fewer than in
Galicia or Right-Bank Ukraine. As well, a characteristic form of peasant settlement, the
khutir, or single farmstead, was found there. (See also History of Ukraine.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Putro, A. Levoberezhnaia Ukraina v sostave Rossiiskogo gosudarstva vo vtoroi polovine XVIII veka:
Nekotorye voprosy sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo i obshchestvenno-politicheskogo razvitiia (Kyiv 1988)
Ananieva, T. (ed). Opysy livoberzhnoï Ukraïny kintsia XVIII–pochatku XIX st. (Kyiv 1997)

Andrew Beniuk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]

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Left-Bank Ukraine

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Left-Bank Ukraine entry:

1 Andrusovo, Treaty of
2 Apostol family
3 Apostol, Danylo
4 Apostol, Petro
5 Archeology

6 Autonomy
7 Bahalii, Dmytro
8 Bakhchesarai, Treaty of
9 Bakhmach
10 Baturyn

11 Belarus
12 Black Sea Cossacks
13 Bohun, Ivan
14 Bolbochan, Petro
15 Bondarykha culture

16 Briukhovetsky, Ivan
17 Brotherhoods
18 Buchach Peace Treaty
19 Burghers

20 Catacomb culture

+ 20 Records >>

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