Oleg A. Ukrainian family heraldry of the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods (XIV - XVIII centuries)

The thesis deals with peculiarities of establishment and evolution as well as characteristic features of Ukrainian family heraldry of the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods. The development of the latter is analogous to nothing in the history of all-European heraldic tradition. The heraldry of no country was ever subjected to such essential changes as we can find in Ukrainian heraldic art at the turn from the 16th to the 17th century. Proceeding from information available nowadays appearance of the most ancient Ruthenian family coats of arms could be dated to mid-fourteenth century at the latest. Actually we don't have a single reliable evidence of Polish heraldic system having any influence on Ruthenian coats of arms not only in the 14th century (the period of separate political existence of Ruthenian Kingdom), but also in the next, 15th century, when Western lands of Ruthenian Kingdom were incorporated into the Polish Crown (in 1434). During the period we practically can't find a single example of Ruthenian gentry using Polish coats of arms. Development of family heraldry in Ruthenian Kingdom and Ruthenian lands of the Crown run in the same direction as family heraldry art evolution in other lands of medieval Ruthenia - Volhynia, Podolje, Ukraine (Kyiv land), Siver, Ruso-Vlahia. It was first of all characterized by extremely wide usage of various family symbols that probably had rather ancient origins. Unlike heraldic systems of most European countries that were created at the late Middle Ages on an absolutely new symbolic basis, Ruthenian family heraldry rested upon centuries-old (preheraldic) tradition acquiring therefore unique forms and peculiar halo of antiquity. Most Ruthenian family coats of arms throughout the whole late Middle Ages period were based on various sign-like constructions (crosses, arrows, straight and broken lines, letters, circles and semicircles and their combinations). Essential changes in heraldic art of Ruthenian lands take place at the turn from the 16th to the 17th century. Thus, heraldic transformations of the second part of the 16th - the first part of the 17th centuries lead to creation of a new Republican (Rechpospolitan) heraldic system, establishment of the latter having been influenced by Polish, Lithuanian and Prussian components apart from Ruthenian constituent (obviously, the most numerous one). Simultaneously with creation of the Republican heraldry one more complex of family coats of arms appears on the Dnieper region territory, the latter partially inheriting traditions of medieval Ruthenian heraldic art. The Cossack heraldry was that early modern system, having a series of original characteristic features concerning both external design and the sphere of symbolic content of the corresponding heraldic monuments. Till the mid-eighteenth century the Cossack family heraldry only insignificantly used Ruthenian and Republican heraldic heritage. The most expressive peculiarity of the Cossack heraldry was extreme militarization of its symbolic content. We can see depictions of weapon, symbols denoting military glory and similar things, military plots on almost every Cossack coat of arms.