Cossack Ukraine: A Look Through the Centuries

The main relic of the exhibition is a unique hetman’s banner of the late 17th century. For almost half a century — a full 42 years — the banner embodied the highest state authority in the Cossack state, the Hetmanate.

It is linked with the names of four Ukrainian hetmans: Ivan Samoilovych, Ivan Mazepa, Ivan Skoropadskyi and Danylo Apostol. The value of the relic is heightened by the fact that it is one of the three hetman’s banners that have survived to our time and the only monument of this type in Ukraine (the others are kept in Moscow and Stockholm).

Visitors are offered interesting exhibits that tell of the Cossack past: the banner of the Samara kuren of the Zaporozhian Sich made in 1772, the sabre of Yosyp Hladkyi, the last kish otaman of the Danubian Sich, Cossack weapons, household items and documents of the 18th century, including Cossack chronicles that tell of the heroic events of the Ukrainian people’s National Liberation War.

The exhibition also shows numerous lithographs, pre-revolutionary postcards and works by the outstanding Ukrainian artists Serhii Ivanovych Vasylkivskyi and Mykola Semenovych Samokysh devoted to Cossack themes.