“Pravova derzhava”. Issue 36 (2025), pages 283–293.

DOI: 10.33663/0869-2491-2025-36-283-293

Khudoiar Lesia
Legal registration of the territory of the state of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke during the National Liberation War of 1648–1658

Introduction. It is relevant for preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine in the context of Russia’s large-scale military expansion to study the history of the formation and legal registration of the status of the territory of the modern Ukrainian state.
Results. The legal registration of the territory of the Ukrainian state was initiated in the process of sovereignization of the Ukrainian people during the period of the emergence and formation of the CossackS. The legal acts of B. Khmelnytsky clearly delineate the territory of the Cossack state of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke and its borderS. The Zboriv Treatise initiated the legal registration of the territory of the
Cossack state of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke at the interstate level. For the first time in the history of Ukrainian-Polish relations, a clear border was established between the territory of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Given the content of the above historical documents and the positions of leading modern scholars, one should agree with the conclusion of Z. Kohut, who considers the Zboriv Agreement to be a starting point, a legal precedent that was referred to in every case when the question of determining the territory and borders of the Cossack lands arose. Such were the territory and borders of the Cossack state at the time of the Pereyaslav Council of 1654.
The successors of the hetman perceived the Zboriv Articles as the principles of the legal registration of the Cossack state. Subsequently, the hetmans of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke traditionally considered all the lands that belonged to the Cossacks under the Zboriv Agreement to be the property of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke. And although later B. Khmelnytsky was forced to sign the more unfavorable Bila Tserkva Peace Treaty (1651), which limited the lands of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke only to the Kyiv Voivodeship, the Cossacks continued to perceive the territorial boundaries of their lands according to the Zboriv Articles as belonging to the Army for life. Bila Tserkva Treaty of 1651 according to the Zhvanetsk Peace Treaty of 1653 was abolished, and relations between the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were further regulated on the basis of the Treaty of Zboriv in 1649.
Conclusions. The legal registration of the territory of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke state, and therefore the recognition of the Cossack state as a subject of international relations, took place during the National Liberation War of 1648–1658 and was initiated by the Zboriv Agreement (1649). The ratification of the Zboriv Agreement by the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian state gives the right to consider it the first legal document that legitimized the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke Host state and clearly outlined the administrative division and borders of the Cossack landS. The formation of statehood in the form of the Hetmanate on ethnic Ukrainian territories was implemented on the basis of the historical memory of the Ukrainian people and the interpretation by the Cossack elite of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke state as the heir and successor of Kyivan Rus.

Key words: Ukraine, state of the Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke, Ukrainian state formation, National Liberation War of the Ukrainian people of 1648–1658, territory and borders of the Ukrainian Cossack state, national territory

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