Historian Every Saturday: Natalya Starchenko. On Ukrainian early modern history — with pride and without sedatives (07.09.2024)
An academic lecture by historian Natalya Starchenko (the “Historian Every Saturday” series) on early modern Ukrainian history. The key point: the Ukraine of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a self-governing society with the rule of law (the Lithuanian Statute), a noble democracy, and the principle of “nothing about us without us” (Nihil novi, 1505) — a European political tradition opposite to Muscovite autocracy (where serving another sovereign was deemed treason). A source for the article on the legal tradition of early modern Ukraine.
Key moments
- 10:40 A self-governing society without a bureaucratic vertical; the 19th century wrongly saw it as 'anarchy'
- 18:32 The Ukrainian voivodeships were judged under the Second Lithuanian Statute (Lublin, 1569)
- 20:18 'Nihil novi' 1505: the king enacts nothing without the Sejm; a voivodeship = a 'republic'
- 45:00 The privilege of 1447: serving another sovereign ≠ treason (unlike in Muscovy)