On Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution (06.01.2025)
A segment of a street-format “dispute” video devoted to Pylyp Orlyk’s 1710 Constitution. The article draws on the historian’s explanation of the document’s two redactions (Latin and Church Slavonic), the contemporary meaning of the word “constitution” (an agreement between the king and the nobility, not a fundamental law in the modern sense), and the caveat about the title “the first constitution” as a partial modernization. A source for the article on the legal tradition of early modern Ukraine.
Key moments
- 09:40 Orlyk's Constitution — the first written agreement between the Cossack officer class and the rank-and-file Cossacks; survives in two redactions
- 10:02 The Latin redaction contains the word "Constitution," the Church Slavonic one does not; back then "constitutions" meant agreements between the king and the nobility, not a fundamental law
- 13:01 The document never effectively entered into force (Orlyk briefly controlled only a small part of the Right Bank); "the first constitution" is rather a modernizing label