The Ukrainian Hetmanate vs. Europe

A lecture by Tatiana Tairova (Yakovleva), Jacyk Distinguished Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.

IN-PERSON and ONLINE via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online. 

About the Lecture

How did the Ukrainian Hetmanate become an independent subject of European politics? How was the understanding of these realities formed among the Cossack leaders and how was Ukraine–Hetmanate viewed in the European states: Sweden, France, and the Holy Roman Empire? What was the starting point and when did the awareness of the need to find its place on the political map of Europe come?

The lecture will trace the positioning of the Hetmanate from the time of Sahaidachny, when Ukraine first entered the international arena, to Ivan Mazepa, who became a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The sources that allow us to judge the views and arguments of the Starshina are the chronicle of Samoilo Velychko, correspondence with foreign sovereigns, international treaties, speeches, official documents of the General Chancellery, and Western European newspapers. The lecture will also offer a comparative analysis of the relationship between the Hetmanate and Europe vs. the Hetmanate and Muscovy.

About the Speaker

Dr. Tatiana Tairova (Yakovleva) is the author of 16 books and around 140 articles on the history of Ukraine, including the monograph, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire (McGill & Queen, 2020). She was Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Center for the Ukrainian Studies at St. Petersburg State University for nearly two decades until she was dismissed in 2022 for opposing the war in Ukraine.

Tatiana Tairova founded the Center for Ukrainian Studies at St. Petersburg State University in 2004. One of the primary goals of the Center was the identification and publication of archival materials on Ukrainian history in Russian archives. Thanks to the materials found in the course of this work, she authored monographs that radically changed existing knowledge of the Mazepa-era and the history of relations between the Hetmanate and the Moscow authorities. In 2004, she discovered and later published the so-called Baturyn archive, which was a significant event for the world of Ukrainian studies because it brought to light a large quantity of previously unknown historical documents and presented the structure and content of hetman archives for the first time. In 2020, by the initiative and under the guidance of Tairova, the first academic edition of Samiilo Velychko's chronicle was realized. This publication changed our understanding of Cossack chronicles and Velychko's views.

Tatiana Tairova was born in Leningrad and graduated from Leningrad State University in 1989. She was awarded the first Petro Jacyk Doctoral Thesis Fellowship from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), University of Alberta. She earned her kandidat nauk degree in 1994 from the Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and her doktor nauk degree on the history of the Hetmanate from St. Petersburg State University in 2004. From 2022-2024, she was a research fellow supported by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung in Germany.

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This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the Petro Jacyk Seminar series.

Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Hanna Leliv, HURI Events Logistics Coordinator, at hleliv@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks in advance of the session.

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