Potulnytski H. Cossack's factor in diplomatic and intellectual activity of French elites (1729-1789)

The dissertation is devoted to the study of Cossack's factor in diplomatic and intellectual activity of French elites in the period from 1729 till 1789. The basic sources of this research are collected in the materials of Diplomatic archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, in the holdings of the State Library in Berlin and in private archive of Omeljan Pritsak, located in the archive collection of National University "Kiev-Mohyla Academy". All these sources have not still been used in complex and have not become a basis of any scientific research in Ukrainian science on the history of international relations of the eighteenth century. After a broad and thorough analysis of the materials from above-mentioned archives as well as historical papers on this subject the author managed to make a detailed depiction of the general scheme of the integration of the Cossack's factor in political and intellectual life of France in the timeline of Louis XVs and Louis XVIs of French reign. The wide use of French diplomatic documents also allows exposing complicated problems connected with French foreign policy of the eighteenth century more objective and completely. In terms of general historiosophical vision the author not only considers the main existing theoretical-methodological conceptions, but also elaborates a new complex approach to the analysis of the research problem. This approach is caused by the presence of essentially distinct discursive practices in the framework of creative implementation of such historiosophical phenomenon as the concept of mentality, the paradigm of legitimacy and the theory of elites. Such methodology and the revision of some contradictory conclusions of the previous foreign and Ukrainian historiography made it possible to come to the creation of a conception, where the diplomatic efforts of French political elites, from the one side, and historical elaborations of intellectual elites, from the another side, are being considered as especial historical process with its own internal logic of development. The analysis, presented in the dissertation, provides a basic for understanding the strategy and tactics used by French political and military figure of Ukrainian origin G. Orlyk, as well as his companions-in-arms F. Myrovich and F. Nachymovski in order to integrate the Cossack's question into the whole structure of French eastern foreign policy on Swedish, Polish, Turkish, Crimean and Russian directions. The author also studies main factors which influenced the decision of Versailles to start the policy of constructive implementation of Cossack's factor in relations with the countries of Eastern Europe. Main G. Orlyk's and his political milieu's ideas about Ukrainian question, Ukrainian-Polish and Ukrainian-Russian relations are analyzed and the impact of his views on French political elite is studied. The general foreign policy situation of French Kingdom in 1730s-1750s have been considered in order to determinate the place of the Cossack's question in foreign policy system of the period. The author provides a very concrete picture of the diplomatic set-up of France, its practices and traditions with determination of specific issues which played a major part in the French-Russian contradiction. The dissertation gives much prominence to the relations between scientific and social-political factors in the process of forming of the image of Cossack's nation in historical knowledge of the second part of the eighteenth century. It is proved that the representatives of the French intellectual elite (de Rulhi?re, Le Clerc, Scherer) were trying to spread the information about the Cossacks as a separate people in the framework of the general concept of Enlightenment. The dissertation presents a general analysis of Cossack's image that has been constructed by and functioning in French intellectual and political circles from the beginning of 1760s till the end of 1780s.The research reveals the complex evolution that the image of Cossack's factor has undergone in a result a various political, social, cultural and personal factors.