Hlukhiv

Hlukhiv stands on the Esman, a tributary of the Seim, in the old Severian lands. First recorded in 1152, it became a princely seat after the Mongol invasion and later passed between Lithuania, Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Its greatest political importance came in the eighteenth century, when it served as the capital of the Cossack Hetmanate.

King Władysław IV granted Hlukhiv Magdeburg rights in 1644. The town entered the Hetmanate during the uprising of 1648, and its Cossack and Russian garrison withstood a Polish siege in 1664. In 1669 Demian Mnohohrishny was elected hetman here and agreed to terms with the tsar's representatives that limited Cossack autonomy. After Ivan Mazepa allied with Charles XII in 1708, Peter I ordered the destruction of Baturyn and the transfer of the hetman's seat to Hlukhiv. Ivan Skoropadsky was elected here, and the town remained the Hetmanate's capital until 1764. Its buildings were remodelled under the last hetmans; after the office was abolished, the Russian Little Russian Collegium governed from the town.