Critical examination of universal's form

Nicholas Zharkikh

Invocation

Intitulation

Address

Words and Expressions

Eschatocol

Total we examined 11 indicators, and found that 7 of them contradict the form of documents Khmelnytsky. However, we found 12 violations (2 – in intitulation, 3 – in inscription, 4 – in words use, 2 – in date, 1 – in signature). Thus, we can firmly say that UBKh does not belong to the class of "Bohdan Khmelnytsky universals".

Moreover, author of UBKh don't had in the hands any real Khmelnytsky's universal and could not take it as a model. However, a significant number of correspondences with the shape of a typical universals shows that author had some hetman universal.

Diplomatics of Stefan Báthory's document included in UBKh does not require such detailed scrutiny. Stefan Báthory could not give such document. Moreover, author of UBKh had no idea how a true royal charters should look. Lacking any standard, he was forced to resort to a free narrative style.

It is an abstract of the chapter. For the full text see please ukrainian version.