Sloboda Ukraine
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Sloboda Ukraine (Russian: , Slobodskaya Ukraina) or Slobozhanshchina (Russian and Ukrainian: Слобожанщина) was a historical region (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) on the frontier of Muscovy and Imperial Russia, settled by Cossacks that were fugitives from Poland, as well as by peasants and townspeople. Migrants received government support, both in land and money. The name comes from the term for Cossack settlements, sloboda, that may be translated as a "free settlement", meaning a non-serf settlement. The population was called Sloboda Cossacks (slobodskie kazaki). The area comprised the Southern frontier of Russian Empire of the time.
During 1650–1765 it was organized according to Cossack military custom, similarly to the Zaporozhian Host and the Hetmanate. There were five regimental districts (polky) of Sloboda Cossacks, named after the towns of their sustained deployment, and subdivided into company districts (sotni): Ostrogozhsky, Kharkovsky, Akhtyrsky, Sumsky, and Izyumsky.
Under Catherine the Great, the regiments of Slobozhanshchina were disbanded and Cossack privileges were abolished by the decree of July 28, 1765. The semiautonomous region became a province (namestnichestvo) called Sloboda Ukraine. The regimental administrations were replaced by regular Russian hussar regiments, and Cossack higher ranks (starshinas) were granted officership and dvoryanstvo (nobility). Those who wished to remain Cossacks were allowed to move to the Kuban territory which was being actively colonised at that time.
In 1835, Sloboda Ukraine became Kharkov Guberniya, ceding some territory to Voronezh and Kursk, under the Little Russian governorship of Left-bank Ukraine. The region was to be reorganized several times under Soviet Ukraine, until the borders of modern Kharkiv Oblast were established in the 1930s.
Slobozhanshchina corresponds to the territory of modern Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast (province), as well as parts of Sumy, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblasts, and parts of Belgorod, Kursk, and Voronezh Oblasts of Russia.
See also
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