hussar regiments, and granted Cossack higher ranks (starshinas) officership and nobility (dvoryanstvo). In 1780, the governorate was transformed into the Kharkov Viceroyalty (namestnichestvo) which existed until the end of 1796, when it was again renamed into Sloboda Ukrainian Governorate. Each administrative reform involved territorial changes. In 1835, the province of Sloboda Ukraine was abolished, ceding most of its territory to the new Kharkov Governorate, and some to Voronezh and Kursk, which came under the Little Russian General Governorship of Left-bank Ukraine. After the establishment of the Soviet Union Sloboda Ukraine was divided between the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR. The early 1930s forced end to Ukrainization in the parts of Sloboda Ukraine located in the Russian SFSR led to a massive decline of reported Ukrainians in these regions in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR reorganized their part of the region several times before establishing the borders of present-day Kharkiv Oblast in 1932. References External links Sloboda in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine The autonomous hetman state and Sloboda Ukraine in the Encyclopædia Britannica Further reading Bibliography of Russian history Bibliography of Ukrainian history List of Slavic studies journals Historical regions in Ukraine Historical regions in Russia Zaporozhian Host 17th-century establishments in Ukraine Divided regions