other · Poland, Lithuania and Russia
Sloboda Ukraine
Origins
From the 1630s, and especially after the wars that followed 1648, Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks fled from Polish-ruled lands into the empty steppe borderland of the Tsardom of Russia. Moscow granted them freedom from taxes and land in return for guarding its southern frontier. Their settlements, called slobody, gave the region its name, and Kharkiv was founded around 1654.
Rule and society
The region was organised into five Cossack regiments, Kharkiv, Sumy, Okhtyrka, Izium and Ostrogozhsk, each led by a colonel. Unlike the Cossack Hetmanate, there was no hetman, and the regiments answered directly to Moscow. The settlers farmed the black earth, traded and defended the frontier against Crimean Tatar raids. The philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda taught at the Kharkiv Collegium.
Decline and legacy
In 1765 Catherine II abolished the Cossack regiments and created the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate, turning the Cossacks into ordinary subjects. The region later formed the core of the Kharkiv province of the Russian Empire.
Lineage
On the connections map
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- Sloboda Ukraine was part of Tsardom of Russia1652 CE – 1721 CE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Sloboda Ukraine. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/sloboda-ukraine
- MLA
- “Sloboda Ukraine.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/sloboda-ukraine. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Sloboda Ukraine.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/sloboda-ukraine.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Sloboda Ukraine’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/sloboda-ukraine (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻