Eng
Eng
Today, on April 5, 313 years have passed since the signing of the first Ukrainian Constitution. It is also called the “Constitution of Hetman Pylyp Orlyk” and the “Bender Constitution”. This is an outstanding historical monument of Ukrainian and European thought of the 18th century, which laid the foundations of Ukrainian constitutionalism.
Its title: “Treaty and Determination of the Rights and Freedoms of the Zaporizhzhya Army.”
This treaty was concluded on April 5, 1710 in the city of Bendery between the newly elected hetman Pylyp Orlyk, a Cossack foreman and the Cossacks of the Zaporizhzhya Army. The document defined the relationship between the hetman and the Cossack foreman, the foundations of the state system of Ukraine, the rights and obligations of its estates in the event of the reconquest of its territories from the Muscovite Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, and also announced the reasons for the transfer of the Zaporizhzhya Army under the protectorate of the Kingdom of Sweden.
The provisions of the Treaty were fulfilled by the Zaporozhians until 1733, during the stay of the Zaporozhian Army in Oleshki. As noted by the Ukrainian historian Dmytro Yavornytskyi, Zaporizhzhya Cossacks in Oleshkivska Sich remained faithful to their religion and their laws.
This document is considered a monument of Ukrainian political-philosophical and legal thought, the first modern constitution and the basis of many world constitutions, historians consider it the first Constitution of Ukraine.
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