Розділ колективної монографії "Імперські ідентичності в українській історії XVIII – першої половини ХІХ ст.".
The last decades of the 18th century in the history of Hetmanate
were marked by radical imperial unifications. However, the Russian Empire became the reality for the political and social life
of Ukrainians, both natives of the Cossack autonomous entities
in the Russian Empire and of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, much earlier. The Hetmanate, and more broadly the whole
Russian Empire, attracted people of the "Polish nation" through
the opportunity of making a career. Among them one can easily
find personalities who frequently and openly demonstrated their
loyalty to the Russian monarchs. By focusing on the case of Pavlo
Lobko, a native of Volhynia in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who became a parish priest in Kyiv, this chapter examines
how "small" people learned to benefit from the Russian Empire
already in the mid-18th century.