Formation of Early National Constitutionalism from the Second Half of the Seventeenth to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract The relevance of the topic lies in the need to disprove the pseudo-scientific statements of the political leadership of the Russian Federation concerning absence of a historical tradition of Ukrainian state-building and national constitutionalism. The article is aimed at analyzing the main sources of constitutional law of the Ukrainian state and peculiarities of the process of formation of early national constitutionalism from the second half of the seventeenth to the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. In the course of the study, the historical comparative and historical typological scientific methods have been used which have made it possible to establish the characteristics of formation of national constitutionalism. Based on the principle of historicism, the objective regularities of the emergence and development of constitutionalism in Ukraine have been revealed. In the article, the process of rise of early national constitutionalism from the second half of the seventeenth to the beginning of the eighteenth centuries has been researched on the basis of the analysis of the sources of constitutional law of Ukraine such as Cossack customary law, Magdeburg law, constitutional legal acts, and treaties. Being in progress, this process was based on its own state and legal experience, in particular, of Zaporizhzhia Sich, as well as the experience of European countries. The key features of constitutionalism were the recognition and statutory expression of rights and freedoms, introduction of a republican form of government, and mechanisms for limiting the state power. It has been proved that the sources of Ukrainian constitutionalism of the Hetmanate period reflect treaty socio-political traditions that existed in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The main treaty tradition, which became the basis for the development of Ukrainian constitutionalism, was an effort to protect the interests of the Ukrainian state and representatives of its national elite in various treaty forms, which laid the foundations for legal regulation of social relations. It should be taken in consideration that the features of the process of formation of early national constitutionalism from the second half of the seventeenth to the beginning of the eighteenth centuries were as follows: it was in progress simultaneously with the revival of the Ukrainian state and national liberation war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Tsardom of Muscovy, as well as struggle of officers’ groups for power, confrontation between officers and lower strata of Cossacks. The formation of early national constitutionalism took place under the conditions of significant human and material losses, which was called the Ruin in the national historical science. The prospect of further research into the formation of Ukrainian constitutionalism is caused by the fact that the national historical and legal science and the science of constitutional law have not developed a unified position on the time and features of its emergence and development yet.