Governing Council of the Hetman Office

Governing Council of the Hetman Office (Pravlenie getmanskogo uriada). A provisional government in the Hetman state of Left-Bank Ukraine from 1734 to 1750. After the death of Hetman Danylo Apostol, the tsarist government forbade the election of a new hetman. In order to further limit Ukrainian autonomy, Empress Anna Ivanovna assigned the hetman's functions to an appointed council of three Russian officials and three members of the Cossack starshyna, who were to rule according to Ukrainian customary law, the empress's decrees, and the Reshitel’nye punkty, the constitution imposed in the Hetman state by Russia in 1728. Although all members were to have equal authority, the council was actually ruled by Aleksei Shakhovskoi until 1737, briefly by I. Bariatinsky, and then by Gen I. Bibikov until 1745 with secret instructions from the empress to further subjugate Ukraine. The senior Ukrainian member of the council was the general quartermaster Yakiv Yu. Lyzohub. Other Ukrainian members included the general judge Mykhailo Zabila, the general osaul F. Lysenko, and the general treasurer Andrii Markovych. The council's decisions could be overruled by the Chancellery of Little Russian Affairs of the Russian Senate, to which the council was subordinated. During the council's rule, Ukraine bore the brunt of the economic destruction and population losses wreaked by the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–9. The council existed until Empress Elizabeth I restored the General Military Chancellery and Kyrylo Rozumovsky was appointed hetman in 1750.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]