Sloboda Ukraine, also known locally as ''Slobozhanshchyna'' or ''Slobozhanshchina'', is a historical region in northeastern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and southwestern

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It developed from Belgorod Razriad and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the southwestern frontier of the

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...

. In 1765, it was converted into the

Sloboda Ukraine Governorate Kharkov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called Sloboda U ...

Etymology

Its name derives from the term ''

sloboda A sloboda was a type of settlement in the history of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for 'freedom' and may be loosely translated as 'free settlement'.

'' for a colonial settlement free of tax obligations, and the word ''

'' was used to refer to the area inhabited by

Ukrainian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks (in Latin ''Cossacorum Zaporoviensis''), also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host (), were Cossacks who lived beyond (that is, downstream from) the Dnieper Rapids. Along with Registered Cossa ...

and settlers. The word ''Ukraine'' is often considered to originally refer to a 'borderland', a view supported by Russian, Ukrainian, and Western historians such as

Orest Subtelny Orest Subtelny (, 17 May 1941 – 24 July 2016) was a Ukrainian-Canadian historian. Born in Kraków, Poland, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1973. From 1982 to 2015, he was a Professor in the Departments of History and Polit ...

Paul Magocsi Paul Robert Magocsi (; born January 26, 1945) is an American professor of history, political science, and Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He has been with the university since 1980 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society ...

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak (; 7 April 1919 – 29 May 2006) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Rese ...

Mykhailo Hrushevskyi Mykhailo Serhiiovych Hrushevsky (; – 24 November 1934) was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian and statesman who was one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century. Hrushevsky is ...

Ivan Ohiyenko Metropolitan Ilarion (secular name Ivan Ivanovych Ohienko; ; 2 January (14 January), 1882 in Brusyliv, Kyiv Governorate – 29 March 1972 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) was a Ukrainian Orthodox cleric, linguist, church historian, and histori ...

Petro Tolochko Petro Petrovych Tolochko (; 21 February 1938 – 28 April 2024) was a Soviet and Ukrainian historian, archaeologist, and political activist. He was one of the leading specialists in history of the Kievan Rus (Old Rus) and one of leading research ...

,Толочко П. П. «От Руси к Украине» («Від Русі до України») 1997 and others. It is supported by the ''

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

'' and the ''Ukrainian Etymological Dictionary''. Some Ukrainian historians claim the original meaning of the word is 'country', 'region' or 'homeland'.

Geographical extent

The territory of historic Sloboda Ukraine corresponds to parts of the present-day Ukrainian

oblast An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

s (provinces) of

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

Sumy Sumy (, , ) is a city in northeastern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Sumy Oblast. The city is situated on the banks of the Psel (river), Psel River and has a population of making it the 23rd-largest in the country. The city ...

, and

Luhansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the Cities in Ukraine, 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administra ...

, as well as parts of

Belgorod Belgorod (, ) is a city that serves as the administrative center of Belgorod Oblast, Russia, located on the Seversky Donets River, approximately north of the border with Ukraine. It has a population of It was founded in 1596 as a defensiv ...

Kursk Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of Kursk ...

, and

Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...

oblasts of Russia.What Makes Kharkiv Ukrainian

The Ukrainian Week ''The Ukrainian Week'' (, ) is an illustrated weekly magazine and news outlet covering politics, economics and the arts and aimed at the socially engaged Ukrainian-language reader. It provides a range of analysis, opinion, interviews, feature p ...

(23 November 2014)

History

Early history

Russia gained control over the territory as a result of conquests against the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

during the

Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars The Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars (also known as the Russo-Lithuanian Wars or simply Muscovite Wars or Lithuanian Wars)The conflicts are referred to as 'Muscovite wars' () in Polish historiography and as 'Lithuanian wars' in Russian one; English his ...

in the 16th century. According to Russian and Ukrainian sources of the 16th–17th centuries, the region was initially part of the Russian state, which encouraged the settlement of this territory for defensive purposes. It was first colonized by the Russians in the first half of the 16th century and became part of a defense line used against the Crimean–Nogai slave raids.Brian Davies. Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia's Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing. 2011. P. 44 A second wave of colonization occurred in the 1620s to 1630s, largely in the form of Ukrainian

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

regiments, who were allowed to settle there to help protect the territory against the

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

.Brian Davies. Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia's Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing. 2011. P. 45 The Cossacks who arrived in Sloboda Ukraine were under the sovereignty of Russian tsars and their military chancellery, and were registered in Russian military service. Many Ukrainian refugees arrived from Poland-Lithuania after the Ostryanyn uprising of 1637–1638 and received generous resettlement subsidies from the Russian government. For decades, Ukrainian Cossacks crossed the border into southern Russia to gather livestock. Still, many of them engaged in banditry, prompting Russia to establish a new garrison town on the Boguchar River to defend the land from Ukrainian bandits. Russia also resettled many of the Ukrainian refugees at Valuyki, Korocha,

, and as far as Kozlov. Prelesne 0009

Crimean Tatars Crimean Tatars (), or simply Crimeans (), are an Eastern European Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group and nation indigenous to Crimea. Their ethnogenesis lasted thousands of years in Crimea and the northern regions along the coast of the Blac ...

and Nogai Tatars traditionally utilized the sparsely inhabited area of the

Wild Fields The Wild Fields is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries to refer to the Pontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Western Russia, north of the Black Sea ...

on the border of Russia, immediately south of

Severia Severia (, ; ) or Siveria ( / , ''Siveria'' / ''Sivershchyna'') is a historical region in present-day southwest Russia, northern Ukraine, and eastern Belarus. The largest part lies in modern Russia, while the central part of the region is the c ...

, to launch annual raids into Russian territories along the

Muravsky Trail Muravsky Trail or Murava Route (; ) was an important trade route and an invasion route of the Crimean Nogays during the Russo-Crimean Wars of the 16th and early 17th centuries. As described in the Book to the Great Chart of Muscovy (1627), the ...

and Izyum Trail. In 1591, a Tatar raid reached the Moscow region, compelling the Russian government to construct new forts, including

and Oskol in 1593,

Yelets Yelets or Elets () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Bystraya Sosna River, which is a tributary of the Don River, Russia, Don. Population: History Yelets is the oldest center of the ...

in 1592,

Kromy Kromy () is the name of several types of inhabited localities in Russia, inhabited localities in Russia. ;Urban localities *Kromy, Oryol Oblast, an urban-type settlement in Kromskoy District of Oryol Oblast ;Rural localities *Kromy, Ivanovo Oblas ...

in 1595,

in 1597, and Tsarev-Borisov and

Valuyki Valuyki () is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. Urban localities *Valuyki, Belgorod Oblast, a town in Belgorod Oblast Rural localities * Valuyki, Moscow Oblast, a village in Teryayevskoye Rural Settlement of Volokolamsky Distric ...

in 1600. Tsarev-Borisov, named after Tsar

Boris I Boris I (also ''Bogoris''), venerated as Saint Boris I (Mihail) the Baptizer (, ; died 2 May 907), was the ruler (knyaz) of the First Bulgarian Empire from 852 to 889. Despite a number of military setbacks, the reign of Boris I was marked wit ...

, was the oldest settlement in Sloboda Ukraine.Ісаєв Т. О. Цареборисів: від заснування до утворення Ізюмського слобідського полку // Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В. Н. Каразіна, 2010, No 906, С. 91 During those raids, regions near

Ryazan Ryazan (, ; also Riazan) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 C ...

and along the

Oka River The Oka (, ; ) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, ...

suffered the most. The conflict intensified with Russian territorial expansion south and east into the lands of modern Sloboda Ukraine and the mid-Volga River. Sometime between the 1580s and 1640s, the ''Belgorod Defense Line'' was constructed in Sloboda Ukraine, featuring several fortifications, moats, and forts, providing security to the region. After several

Russo-Crimean Wars The Russo-Crimean Wars were fought between the forces of the Tsardom of Russia and the Crimean Khanate during the 16th century over the region around the Volga River. In the 16th century, the Wild Steppes in Russia were exposed to the Khanate ...

, Russian monarchs began to encourage the settlement of the area by

Cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

, who served as a sort of frontier guard force against Tatar raids. Apart from the Cossacks, the settlers included

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising f ...

and townspeople from right-bank and

left-bank Ukraine The Left-bank Ukraine is a historic name of the part of Ukraine on the left (east) bank of the Dnieper River, comprising the modern-day oblasts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy as well as the eastern parts of Kyiv and Cherkasy. Left-bank Ukrain ...

, divided by the

Treaty of Andrusovo The Truce of Andrusovo (, , also sometimes known as Treaty of Andrusovo) established a thirteen-and-a-half year truce, signed on between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had fought the Russo-Polish War sin ...

in 1667. The name ''Sloboda Ukraine'' derives from the word ''sloboda'', a Slavic term meaning "freedom" (or "

liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

"), and also the name of a type of settlement. The tsar would free the settlers of a ''sloboda'' from the obligation of paying taxes and fees for a certain period, which proved very enticing for immigrants. By the end of the 18th century, settlers occupied 523 ''Slobodan'' settlements in Sloboda Ukraine. From 1650 to 1765, the territory referred to as Sloboda Ukraine became increasingly organized according to Cossack military custom, similar to that of the

Zaporozhian Host The Zaporozhian Host (), or Zaporozhian Sich () is a term for a military force inhabiting or originating from Zaporizhzhia, the territory in what is Southern and Central Ukraine today, beyond the rapids of the Dnieper River, from the 15th to th ...

(to the south) and Don Host (to the east). The relocated Cossacks became known as Sloboda Cossacks. There were five

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, military service, service, or administrative corps, specialisation. In Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of l ...

al districts (''polky'') of Sloboda Cossacks, named after the towns of their sustained deployment and subdivided into company districts ( ''sotni''). Regional centers included Ostrogozhsk,

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

Okhtyrka Okhtyrka (, ; ) is a city in Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Okhtyrka Raion within the oblast. Okhtyrka was once home to Hussars and Cossacks. It was also in the past a regional seat of the Sloboda Ukraine Imperia ...

, and Izyum, while the Sloboda Ukraine Cossack capital was located in

until 1743. From 1753 to 1764, the imperial territory of

Slavo-Serbia Slavo-Serbia or Slaveno-Serbia was a territory of Imperial Russia from 1753 to 1764. It was located to the south of the Donets River, between the Bakhmutka River and Luhan River. This area today is located within present-day Luhansk Oblast a ...

existed to the south.

Russian Empire

The administration of

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

disbanded the regiments of Slobozhanshchina and abolished Cossack privileges by the decree of July 28, 1765. The semiautonomous region became a province called

(''Slobodsko-Ukrainskaya guberniya''). St. Petersburg, 1901, First publication: 1865 Saint Petersburg replaced the regimental administrations with Russian

hussar A hussar, ; ; ; ; . was a member of a class of light cavalry, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely adopted by light cavalry ...

regiments, and granted Cossack higher ranks (''

starshina ( rus, Старшина, p=stərʂɨˈna, a=Ru-старшина.ogg or ) is a senior military rank or designation in the military forces of some Slavs, Slavic states, and a historical military designation. Depending on a country, it had differen ...

s'') officership, and nobility (''

dvoryanstvo The Russian nobility or ''dvoryanstvo'' () arose in the Middle Ages. In 1914, it consisted of approximately 1,900,000 members, out of a total population of 138,200,000. Up until the February Revolution of 1917, the Russian noble estates staffed ...

''). In 1780, the governorate was transformed into the Kharkov Viceroyalty (''namestnichestvo''), which existed until the end of 1796 when it was again renamed Sloboda Ukrainian Governorate. Each administrative reform involved territorial changes. In 1835, the province of Sloboda Ukraine was abolished, ceding most of its territory to the new

Kharkov Governorate Kharkov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called Sloboda Uk ...

and some to

and

, which came under the

Little Russia Little Russia, also known as Lesser Russia, Malorussia, or Little Rus', is a geographical and historical term used to describe Ukraine. At the beginning of the 14th century, the patriarch of Constantinople accepted the distinction between wha ...

n General Governorship of

Soviet era

In November-December 1918, Sudzha was the seat of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, before its relocation to

outside of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1919 to 1934, Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine, before its relocation to

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Dnieper Ukraine The term Dnieper Ukraine (), usually refers to territory on either side of the middle course of the Dnieper River. The Ukrainian name derives from ''nad‑'' (prefix: "above, over") + ''Dnipró'' ("Dnieper") + ''‑shchyna'' (suffix denoting a g ...

. After the establishment of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Sloboda Ukraine was divided between the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

and the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. In the early 1930s,

Ukrainization Ukrainization or Ukrainisation ( ) is a policy or practice of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture in various spheres of public life such as education, ...

ended in the parts of Sloboda Ukraine located in the Russian SFSR, leading to a significant decline in the number of people who identified as Ukrainians.Unknown Eastern Ukraine

(14 March 2012)

Largest cities and towns

* Alexeyevka *

Bakhmut Bakhmut is a city in eastern Ukraine. It is officially the administrative center of Bakhmut urban hromada and Bakhmut Raion in Donetsk Oblast. The city is located on the Bakhmutka River, about north of Donetsk, the administrative center ...

Chuhuiv Chuhuiv () or Chuguev () is a city in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. The city is the Capital (political), administrative center of Chuhuiv Raion (district). It hosts the administration of Chuhuiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population ...

Izium Izium or Izyum (, ; ) is a city on the Donets River in Kharkiv Oblast, eastern Ukraine that serves as the administrative center of Izium Raion and Izium urban hromada. It is about southeast of the city of Kharkiv, the oblast's administrative cen ...

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

* Kramatorsk *

* Ostrogozhsk * Rossosh * Sloviansk *

Notes

References

External links

Sloboda
in th
Encyclopedia of Ukraine

The autonomous hetman state and Sloboda Ukraine
in th
Encyclopædia Britannica

Etymology

Geographical extent

History

Early history

Russian Empire

Soviet era

Largest cities and towns

See also

Notes

References

External links

Further reading