The documents of the last third of the 17th - the first third of the 18th centures on the history of Poltava province

The aim of the research is the actualization and introduction into the scientific circulation of the unknown historical sources that have specific value for the history of Ukraine, and particularly for the history of Poltava province. The methodology of the research is based on application of the methods of historical and logical analysis. The scientific novelty of the paper. The analysis of the studied documents made it possible to defi ne their informational potential and to outline the most crucial facts of Poltava province history under the rule of Ukrainian Hetmans. Previously unknown 29 documents are published for the first time: public legal acts, statutes and universals of Hetmans and colonels, including documents and letters of Hetmans Ivan Skoropadskyi and Danylo Apostol, colonels Maksym Illiashenko, Illia Novytskyi, Pavlo Apostol, other members of the Cossack leadership and Cossack centurions. The majority of the presented documents belong to the archive of irregular military colonel Illia Novytskyi that is preserved in the Institute of Manuscript of V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. Some documents have been found in the depositories of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv. Conclusions. The documents published shed extra light on the history of Poltava province in the last third of the 17th - the first third of the 18th centures with special focus on its political aspects. The paper shows the documents related to the past of Poltava province in the period of Hetmans’ Rule, towns and villages of the Lubny, Myrhorod and Poltava regiments, their social and economic development, political history, the history of some unexplored Cossack regiments and towns that were flooded in the 20th centure during creation of Dnipro artificial water reservoirs; as well as the history of some major Cossack families, in particular Iskra family.