Right-bank Ukraine

The Right-bank Ukraine is a historical region in central Ukraine on the right (west) bank of the Dnieper River, corresponding to the modern-day oblasts of Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, as well as the western parts of Kyiv and Cherkasy.

Right-bank Ukraine is bordered by the historical regions of Volhynia and Podolia to the west, Zaporizhzhia to the south, left-bank Ukraine to the east, and Polesia to the north. It was separated from the left bank and Zaporizhzhia during the Ruin.

Main cities of the region include Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Bila Tserkva.

History Since the Middle Ages, the region formed part of the Khazar Khanate, Kievan Rus', Mongol Empire, Golden Horde, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. Right-bank Ukraine was the target of slave raids by Tatars from the Black Sea steppes.

The history of right- and left-bank Ukraine is closely associated with the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–57. The territory was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under the House of Vasa until the Russo-Polish War triggered by Khmelnytsky's Treaty of Pereyaslav, 1654, with the Muscovy alliance. After the 13-year conflict, the victorious Tsardom of Russia incorporated the left-bank Ukraine along with the city of Kiev in 1667 following the Truce of Andrusovo.

Meanwhile, right-bank Ukraine remained in the Commonwealth until the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. As part of the Lesser Poland Province it was divided into two voivodeships: Kiev and Bracław. In 1669 Hetman Petro Doroshenko allowed right-bank Ukraine to be part of the Ottoman Empire. The southernmost Podolia in the right-bank Ukraine was invaded by Ottomans in 1672.

Following the 1683 victory of the Christian powers in the Battle of Vienna, in 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz returned those lands to the Commonwealth. During the 18th century, two Cossack uprisings took place. The Koliivshchyna was a major haydamak rebellion that broke out in right-bank Ukraine in June 1768. In 1793 right-bank Ukraine was annexed by the Russian Empire in the Second Partition of Poland,Orest Subtelny; Ukraine: A History; University of Toronto Press; 2000. . pp 117, 145–6, 148 becoming part of the guberniya ('governorate') of Little Russia.

In the 19th century, the population of right-bank Ukraine was mostly Ukrainian, but most of the land was owned by the Polish or Polonized Ukrainian nobility. Many of the towns and cities belonged to the Pale of Settlement and had a substantial Jewish population, while the Polish-speaking nobility was mostly Roman Catholic. Most of the peasantry became Greek Catholic only in the 18th century, and after the Partitions of Poland, largely converted to Orthodoxy long before the disestablishment of the Unia in 1839. The right-bank Ukraine was subsequently divided into four provinces (guberniyas), each with its own administration: Kiev, Volhynia, Kherson and Podolia.

Hetmans (1662–1699)

The hetman's capital was initially at Chyhyryn in the 1660s, but under pro-Commonwealth hetman Mykhailo Khanenko moved to Ostroh in the 1669. The pro-Ottoman hetman Doroshenko established the Ottoman Hetmanate's capital at Nemyriv in 1676, which the Commonwealth recaptured in 1678. In 1684, King John III Sobieski confirmed Nemyriv as the residence of the Acting Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine.

1662–1665: Pavlo Teteria 1665–1669: Petro Doroshenko 1669–1674: Mykhailo Khanenko 1675–1679: 1683–1684: Stefan Kunicki 1684–1689: Andriy Mohyla 1689–1692: 1693–1699 (1704): Samiilo Samus

Right-bank Ukraine

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