The Formation of the Little Russian Gentry in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Russian Nobility

This article analyses the emergence and development of the Little Russian gentry within the broader history of the Russian nobility in the eighteenth century. The Little Russian gentry originated from the Cossack elite (starshyna) of the Zaporizhian Registered Host – a military service class that had formed the core political and military corporation of Little Russia following its incorporation into the Russian state in 1654. Cossack institutions of self-government were characterised by elective offices and elements of military democracy. While the Zaporizhian Host was not the only Cossack formation within the Russian armed forces, it was from this body that the most substantial regional noble corporation emerged. The article examines the social and political mechanisms by which the Cossack elite was transformed into a recognised noble estate, emphasising that this process was shaped less by a deliberate and repressive imperial policy than by the convergence of a range of local and imperial factors. By the mid-eighteenth century, the Cossack starshyna increasingly identified themselves as the Little Russian gentry, thereby fostering informal inter-elite contacts with the Great Russian nobility. The Russian government responded pragmatically to these developments, ultimately recognising the Little Russian gentry as equal in status to their Great Russian counterparts and integrating them into the all-imperial noble estate. The study draws on archival materials and published sources to reassess the dynamics of elite transformation and imperial integration in eighteenth-century Little Russia.