Ownership of land and mеnage in Mena hundred at the end of XVII − beginning of XVIII centuries

The proposed study aims to characterize the processes of formation of the Cossack officers, monastic land ownership and development of the territory of the Mena Sotnia in Chernihiv Regiment at the late XVII – early XVIII centuries. Methodologically, the work is based on a combination of regional, microhistorical and anthropological approaches. The use of historical, genetic, comparative and prosopographic methods made it possible to trace the conditions of some giving property changes for the Sotnia Cossack officers, to identify in the sources of related inaccuracies in chronological and factual nature. The scientific novelty of the study is also related to the introduction into the scientific circulation of information from previously unknown documents on the colonization of the Sotnia territory of representatives of the local hundredth Cossacks officers and common Cossacks.
Conclusions. The author has determined the quantitative composition of settlements formed in the age of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in Chernihiv-Sivershchyna. The influence of the displacement movement from Right-Bank Ukraine on the development of the territories of Sotnia has been traced. In particular, nearly one-third of the property and subjects in Sotnia were received by officers from the right-bank Regiments. At the same time, the process of transition of rank holdings in the inheritance, expansion of the boundaries of the monastery possessions, conditions for the establishment of settlements, farmsteads and construction of mills were considered. Particular attention is paid to the settlement and economic activity of the northern part of the Sotnia, whose development was actively involved by local Cossacks officers and common Cossacks. The author presents the distribution of the officers’, monastic properties and territories that were under the control of the Mena town hall. Colonization of vacant lands, establishment of settlements and farms, entrepreneurial activity of new and old owners in Mena Sotnia corresponded to the tendencies of the time and policy of Hetman Ivan Mazepa, aimed at supporting the economic development of the territories and economy of the Ukrainian Cossack State as a whole.