“The Project of Joining Part of the Little Russia Region to Kyiv Province” by Hryhoriy Galagan and Its Ideological Context

Abstract

The article analyses a hitherto unpublished source for studying the history of the administrative-territorial structure of  Ukraine during its stay in  the Russian Empire – a note by Ukrainian public figure Hryhoriy Galagan (1819–1888) on the need to join part of the Little Russia (Left Bank Ukraine) to Kyiv province, written in 1857. It is shown that Galagan sought to use this measure to facilitate the penetration of the Right Bank Ukraine under the  auspices of  the imperial administrative structures of  the “Little Russian nobility”, i.e. Poltava and Chernihiv nobles of Cossack foremen origin, with the assimilation of right-bank Polish landowners. It was found that this note by Galagan could be based on ideological and political traditions of the reign of Catherine II – and the unifying “mixing” of different ethnic groups within one administrative space in the spirit of Enlightened Absolutism, and at the same time using imperial power resources to develop linking geopolitical problems taking into account the interests of the Ukrainian elite, such as the policy of O. A. Bezborodko. It is established that the ideаs set forth in Galagan’s note found a response in  the discourse of  the period of  the January Polish uprising of  1863–1864, in  particular in the journalism of the Moscow Slavophile Ivan Aksakov, a close friend and ally of Galagan. The article can be useful for researchers of Ukrainian socio-political thought in the mid-19th century.