ACT BOOKS AS A SOURCE FOR THE STUDY OF INSTITUTIONAL, LEGAL, SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY OF UKRAINE ХVІ–ХVІІІ CENTURY

Abstract

Act books are written monuments, a product of clerical record keeping, which must be considered primarily in the source study aspect as monuments that are carriers of retrospective archival information and are of fundamental importance for the study of the institutional, legal, socio-economic history of Ukraine in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. Their appearance is due to the practice of medieval office work, which involved writing down the texts of most documents issued on behalf of the ruler. Act books were called differently at different times – depending on the institution in which they were produced, on the language in which they were kept, and the legal field in which they operated. From the end of the XV century. Entry of documents in the act books on a thematic principle was introduced. It is worth noting that the genesis of act books is directly related to the genesis of judicial and administrative institutions. This topic has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. The article emphasizes the importance of the study of this problem, which concerns the history of the foundation and activities of the Kyiv Archive of Ancient Acts. It was found out that it was on the basis of the act books that the Kyiv Archive of Ancient Acts was formed. It is proved that the creation of the archive contributed to the preservation of many historical materials and had a positive impact on the development of historical research of Ukrainian scientists, and most importantly – on the work of the Kyiv Archeographic Commission. The source base of scientific intelligence was made up of archival materials of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv, where the most valuable part of the documentary collection is made up of the act books of judicial-administrative and state institutions of the Right-Bank Ukraine – Grodno, Zemstvo, Podkomorsky, Confederate courts, magistrates and town halls. It is shown that the act books contain documents that reflect the socioeconomic, political development of the Right Bank for the period from the beginning of the sixteenth century. to the end of the eighteenth century.