Agrarian policy of hetman Demko Mnohohrishnyi

The purpose of the study is to identify the key features of the agrarian policy of the hetman during 1669–1672. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and determinism, using general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, analogy, abstraction, as well as a problem- chronological. The scientific novelty. Based on an analysis of nearly all of D. Mnohohrishnyi’s universals and decrees, the article highlights and specifies, for the first time, the directions of his legislative activities concerning land ownership of the elite and peasant-Cossack landholding. This was directly reflected in numerous grants of estates and specific land plots to Ukrainian nobles, Orthodox monasteries, and in the “protection” and “patronage” of urban land holdings. Conclusions. During D. Mnohohrishnyi’s rule, Cossack hereditary land ownership acquired a more solid legal foundation than even that of the nobility. Attempts by Cossacks and commoners to seize monastic estates were punishable by the confiscation of their immovable property, primarily land plots. His rule saw an increase in the establishment of hereditary landownership among military comrades and their widows, forming a segment of the middle-income Cossack class. A somewhat atypical feature of D. Mnohohrishnyi’s policy was the confiscation of mills from their owners to redirect revenues to the treasuries of town magistrates (town halls), which had suffered losses during armed conflicts. A specific case involving the Lubec nobility resembled the status of individuals who, from the 15th to the 17th century, served the state by origin (“po otechestvu”), and in the second half of the 17th century, defended the southern borders of Sloboda and Left-Bank Ukraine and participated in military conflicts against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. The sources referred to them as “service people,” a term that disappeared in the early 18th century.