Chukhlib T. The Ukrainian Hetmanate in confrontation between the European states and the Ottoman Empire (1667-1699): international situation, foreign policy, rotation of the overlords.

In historiography this thesis is the first research of the position and role of the Ukrainian Hetmanate in the international relations in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in view of the confrontation with the Ottoman Empire. Systems and comparative analysis of the foreign policies of the Ukrainian governments of the Left- and Right-Bank parts of the Ukrainian state are given. The author proves that because of the military and political conflict between the Ottoman Empire including the Crimean Khanate on the one hand and the Habsburg Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Venetian Republic (supported by the Vatican) and Muscovy on the other hand the rulers of Ukraine were compelled to manoeuvre, to support the antagonistic sides and hence to refuse a patronage of one overlord (a king, a tsar, a sultan, a khan) to another one. In some periods hetmans recognized dependence from the several neighboring sovereigns at the same times that made possible for the author of the dissertation to draw a conclusion about the poly-vassal foreign policy of the hetman governments. Theses actions permitted to guarantee the international legitimacy of the vassal - the Ukrainian Henmanate - in the system of the region international relations and to preserve his institutions from the complete incorporation in the structure of different foreign states. In this way the Ukrainian-Turkish relations at the time of P. Doroshenko's sojourn under the protection of the Ottomans in 1669-1676, and also Yu. Khmelnitskij's aspiration for revival of a prince form of government during 1677-1681 must be considered. The author argues that neither the items of the Andrusiv truce (1667), nor the Buchach Peace Treaty (1672), nor the Zhuravno Treaty (1676), nor the Bahchisarai Peace Treaty (1681), nor the Eternal Peace Treaty (1686), nor the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) in view of a special position of the hetman governments on Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine didn't establish the final rule of one of the sites under the whole territoryof Cossack Ukraine. At the same time it's proved that just thanks to participation of the Ukrainian Cossack subdivisions from Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine, and Zaporozhye the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy succeeded in the several important military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, the most significant among them were the Battle of Vienna in 1683 and the capture of Azov in 1696. The author reveals that some part of the Cossacks from Right-bank Ukraine and Ukrainian-Moldavian Transnistria fought with "the Muslim camp". The conclusion of the thesis is the confrontation between the European states and the Ottomans contributed to division the Ukrainian Hetmanate which had been unitary in B. Khmelnitskij's time and to lose the politic and legal subjectivity of his parts in the international relations during the second half of the seventeenth century.