Addition to the History of the University Planned for Baturyn during the Hetmanship of Kyrylo Razumovsky: The Privilege of 1762

Abstract

The article is devoted to the unfulfilled project of founding a university in Baturyn during the hetmanship of Kyrylo Rozumovskyi. The aim of the article is to introduce into scientific use a new important source on this topic — the privilege for founding the Baturyn University in 1762, which was supposed to be approved by the Russian Emperor Peter III. This document belonged to the library of the Vologda Theological Seminary, and since 1953 it has been kept in the manuscripts department of the Russian State Library in Moscow. It was found that the basis for drafting the text of the privilege was the project for founding a university in Baturyn, written by Grigoriy Teplov in 1760, and the charter of Moscow University in 1755. The privilege is studied in connection with socio-cultural and political movements in Ukraine (Hetmanate) in the mid-18th century. It is suggested that Grigoriy Teplov may have participated in editing the privilege and that this manuscript may have belonged to clergymen of Ukrainian origin who lived in Vologda in the last third of the 18th century. In addition, the authorship of another manuscript, which is included in the same privileged notebook, has been reattributed — it has been established that this is a list of the “History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks” by Prince Semyon Myshetskyi, and not the work of Alexander Rigelman, as was previously believed. The text of the 1762 privilege is attached to the article.