“PEOPLE WANTED FREEDOM”: REFLECTION OF THE “KIEVAN KOZACHCHYNA” OF 1855 IN THE CORRESPONDENCE AND DIARY NOTES BY HRYHORIY GALAGAN

Abstract

Mass riots of serfs in Right-bank Ukraine in the spring of 1855, known in historiography as the “Kyievan Kozachchyna”, is an important topic that should be careful researched, especially from a cultural and anthropological points of view. In this way it is possible to identify the deep motivation of the peasants’ actions and to explain the reaction of the landlords, clergy and government officials. An important source for the study of the “Kievan Kozachchyna” is the correspondence and diary notes of the Ukrainian public figure Hryhoriy Galagan (1819–1888) of this time. These texts contain not only his own views on the causes, course and consequences of the mass peasant riots in the Kyiv region in the spring of 1855, but also valuable eyewitness accounts of these events, from the governor-general to the ordinary peasant. Galagan’s narratives show a knot of contradictions between representatives of various strata of the agrarian society of the “pre-reform era”, such as the peasantry, landowners, officials and the clergy. Mutual alienation of these strata, lack of communication between them, being in different discursive fields led to the Kyiv Cossacks.