General Host Chancellery

General Host Chancellery 

the supreme military and administrative directorate of the Left-bank Ukraine from the middle of the 17th century until 1764. It was created during the liberation war of 1648-54 and played a favorable role in the struggle of the Ukrainian people against Poland. The General Host Chancellery was located in the residences of the Ukrainian hetmans (under Bogdan Khmel’nitskii in Chigirin, from 1669 to 1708 in, Baturin, etc.). After the unification of the Ukraine and Russia in 1654, the General Host Chancellery became more and more an organ of class domination by the cossack starshina (dominant people) and the Ukrainian nobility over the popular masses. The General Host Chancellery included all the starshina of general rank with the exception of the host judge.

The General Host Chancellery was reorganized during the reign of Peter I the Great. After I. Skoropadskii’s death in 1722 the tsarist government did not permit the election of a new hetmán and transferred the administration of the Left-bank Ukraine to the General Host Chancellery, which, in addition to its previous functions, exercised supervision over the decisions of the General Court on criminal and political affairs. The work of the General Host Chancellery was controlled by the Ukrainian Collegium. Under D. Apóstol (1727-34) the General Host Chancellery was again made subordinate to the hetmán. In 1734 it was transformed into the Board of the Hetman’s Staff, composed of three officers appointed by the tsarist government and three “elected” representatives of the higher cossack starshina. The government also appointed the chairman of the General Host Chancellery, who alone decided the most important affairs. The General Host Chancellery was subordinate to the Senate through the Office on Ukrainian Affairs. Under hetman v. G. Razumovskii (1750-64) the General Host Chancellery was again restored. It was disbanded after the final elimination of the office of hetman in 1764.

REFERENCE

Diadichenko, V. A. Narysy suspil’no-apolitychnoho ustroiu Livo-berezhnoi Ukrainy kintsia XVll-pochatku XVIII st. Kiev, 1959. Pages 152-95.

V. A. GOLOBUTSKII