Children's book in the Cossack nobility families of Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine in the second half of the 18th century

The paper examines children's literature that has been in the families of centesimal and regimental Cossack nobility in the second half of the 18 th century. An ascertainment a list of children's books allows determining ideals, "strategies" and "programs" of Cossack nobility's children. In addition, a special study of family reading Cossack, children's literature still was not realized. The analysis of the sources of personal origin (memoirs, correspondence), private libraries registers, noted features in the history of reading in the families of this social stratum. Children's books were presented by manuals, grammars, lexicons, which was language teaching (Church Slavonic, Latin, French, and German). Since then, many entertaining and instructive books for children are recorded in the private libraries of Cossack nobility representatives. The study also reconstructed «children» segment of Pogarska Provincial Library District Judge Stephen Lashkevych. The conclusion is that Cossack nobility of the second half of the 18th century began to be interested in the problems of education and achievements of European educational thought. Stephen Lashkevych book collection is remarkable by the presence of "new" children's literature. The list of children's books in the libraries gives an evidence of increasing interest of Cossack officers to organization of interesting and instructive entertainment of their children, as well as the reflection on parents' responsibilities. Children's entertaining book that appears in Cossack nobility families in the second half of the 18th century, is an important indication of changes in the relation to childhood that took place within this social status.