Moscow Articles of 1665

Moscow Articles of 1665 (Moskovski statti). An agreement between Hetman Ivan Briukhovetsky and the Muscovite government signed in Moscow on 11 October 1665. It superseded the Baturyn Articles of 1663. Negotiations were conducted in conditions unfavorable to Briukhovetsky and his government. They were totally dependent on Muscovy because of a belligerent Poland, a discordant Cossack starshyna, and a restive population. Briukhovetsky was forced to accept Muscovite demands, which essentially obliterated the sovereignty of the Hetman state and handed all military, administrative, and fiscal power there over to the Muscovite military governors, with the exception that the Cossacks maintained their autonomy as a social estate (see Estates). The articles increased the number of Muscovite troops stationed in Ukraine and obliged the people to feed and maintain them. Muscovite garrisons and military governors were to be stationed in all major Left-Bank towns (Chernihiv, Pereiaslav, Nizhyn, Poltava, Kremenchuk, Novhorod-Siverskyi, Oster) and in Kyiv, Kaniv, and even Kodak, in the Zaporizhia. Taxes were to be collected from the people (except Cossacks) by Muscovite administrators and deposited in the tsar's treasury. In accordance with the articles a property census of the non-Cossack population in Left-Bank Ukraine was conducted in 1666, and the Ukrainian Orthodox church was subordinated to the Patriarch of Moscow. The implementation of the agreement aroused widespread dissatisfaction in Ukraine and was one of the catalysts of the revolt against the Muscovite garrisons and the subsequent murder of Briukhovetsky.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iakovliv, A. Ukraïns’ko-moskovs’ki dohovory v XVII–XVIII vikakh (Warsaw 1934)

Oleksander Ohloblyn

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]