Mykhailo Yelyseyovich Slabchenko

Mykhailo Yelyseyovich Slabchenko

Mykhailo Slabchenko (born on July 21, 1882 ) was a Ukrainian historian, archivist, lawyer, publicist, and academician of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS). He was one of the founders of the state direction in historiography. He researched the Zaporozhzhia Sich and the Hetmanate. He was the author of numerous scientific works, including “Social and Legal Organisation of the Zaporozhzhia Sich” (1927), “Zaporozhzhia Seals of the 18th Century” (1928), and “Palanka Organisation of the Zaporozhzhia Freedoms” (1929).

Slabchenko studied at the faculties of history, philology, and law at Odessa (then Novorossiysk) University. In 1908, he received a gold medal and a scientific trip to Germany for his work ‘Little Russian Regiment in Administrative Understanding”. While there, he studied at the Sorbonne Law School and maintained contact with émigré revolutionaries. Slabchenko himself was a member of the first Ukrainian political parties in the Naddniprianshyna region: the RUP and the USDRP. He was also an activist in the “Hromada” movement. He eventually fell under surveillance and was conscripted into the Tsarist army during the First World War. After the October Revolution, he participated in the Ukrainian Revolution.

He later worked actively in the scientific field in Odessa, where he served as a professor at Odessa University and was involved in establishing the Archaeological Institute. In 1929, he was elected an academician of the Historical and Philological Department of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Slabchenko studied the Cossack kurins as the basis of Zaporozhzhia statehood and referred to the Sich as a ‘federation of kurins’. He also studied the palanka system and its management methods, as well as its role in the region’s economic development. He considered the emergence of palankas to be a natural consequence of the expansion of Zaporizhzhia territory during the period of the New Sich.

The historian provided a detailed description of the social structure of the Zaporozhzhia population, highlighting the different social strata and the contradictions between them: the Cossack and non-Cossack populations, the Sich Cossacks and the denizen Cossacks (Gnizdyuk), and the elders and the ordinary Cossacks.

M. Slabchenko analysed the various components of the Cossack legal system in detail, including military law, judicial law, criminal law, and property law. He also described the tax system and the structures established to protect law and order.

The researcher emphasised the crucial historical role of Zaporozhzhia for the Ukrainian people, while also clearly demonstrating the destructive colonial nature of Muscovy’s policy towards it.

Having faced persecution for his pro-Ukrainian stance during the Tsarist era, Slabchenko was subjected to constant repression by the Bolshevik authorities from 1930 onwards. He was exiled to Solovki and Petrozavodsk. His son Taras was shot. Branded a ‘fascist’, M. Slabchenko died in dire poverty in 1952. According to one account, he froze to death in his home; according to another, he lost consciousness from exhaustion on the street. Russia has always sought to destroy the best representatives of the Ukrainian people.

The material was prepared by Iryna Zhakova, a junior researcher of the Department of Scientific and Educational Work.