“I Was Not Involved in Thefts and Robberies and I Had No Acquaintance with Such People”: Several Documents from the History of Koliivshchyna in 1768

Abstract

The purpose of the publication is to introduce into Scientific circulation the documents stored in the “Archives of the St. Elizabeth Fortress” fund of the Institute of Manuscripts of the Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, which highlight the 1768 uprising in Right-Bank Ukraine. The copy of the letter of Fedir Chorba, the colonel of the Yellow Hussar Regiment, to colonel Khrystyian Korf about sending to the latter six haidamaks captured on the Right-Bank by the Chyhyryn-Dibrova sotnyk Danylo Butovskyi, dated August 15, 1768, the proposal of the colonel Khrystyian Korf to the Yelysavethrad provincial office to send haidamaks to them (August 18-19), and testimony of five of them: Omelko Voronyi, Vasyl Khaidusenko, Moisei Khurtula, Konon Myshenko, Nestor Kovalchuk about their participation in the uprising (August 18-19) are published.

The methodology is based on general Scientific methods of analysis and synthesis.

The Scientific novelty. Documents from the times of the Koliivshchyna in 1768, little-known to the large audience, were introduced into Scientific circulation, and their informative potential was analyzed and commented. The published sources expand the understanding of the course of the uprising in Right-Bank Ukraine, add information about the activities of individual leaders and haidamaks platoons, which raided right-bank towns and villages, expand the idea of punitive operations by Russian teams to suppress the haidamak movement. The comments at the end of the text of the documents help to understand the terms, names and surnames of haidamak leaders, Russian officers and generals, and explain certain events and phenomena.