The Plan of Settlement of New Russia, 1764: the formulation of settlement policy in the south

The administrative re–organization of the Serbian settlements in 1763–4 represented a rationalization of their position in accordance both with internal developments and with broader state policy. Khorvat's illdoings, reports of which had been coming in for several years, formed the immediate object of an investigation of New Serbia, which resulted in the banishment of Khorvat to Vologda. The enquiry exposed the very unsatisfactory condition of the settlement, and focussed attention on its anomalous status; and a parallel examination of Slavyanoserbia produced similar results.

However, the actual condition of the Serbian colonies at this time was only one cause of government interest in them. The official investigations formed part of a wider concern with the Ukraine, stemming from preoccupation with the Black Sea question on the one hand, and on the other from the Empress's determination to suppress what remained of Ukrainian autonomy. The latter trend expressed itself in the abolition of the Hetmanate and the subordination of the Zaporozhian Sech' to the Little Russian College, in 1764, and in the introduction in the rest of the Ukraine of an administrative structure similar to that elsewhere in the Empire.

The solution adopted for the Serbian settlements accorded both with these centralizing tendencies of the beginning of the reign, and with the aim of strengthening Russia's position on her southern boundaries.