Background. The use of prosopography has become an important area of historical research, especially in the context of studying elites and social groups. Having originated in the nineteenth century, this method finally took shape as a separate discipline in the twentieth century, thanks to Lawrence Stone, who defined it as a tool for studying career trajectories, social connections, and economic activities of representatives of specific groups. The article analyses the application of the prosopography method to the study of the Cossack officers of the Lubny Regiment, and considers the role of the source base and historiography in the study of regional elites. Methods. The study is based on the prosopographical method, which was used to create a questionnaire to analyse the career trajectories, social relations and economic activities of representatives of the Cossack officers of the Lubny Regiment, and the study also uses a chronological approach and the principle of historicism in analysing the historiography and source base of the issue. Results. As a result of the study, the stages of formation of the prosopographic method in Ukrainian historiography are outlined and a corpus of sources is collected, which allows studying the Cossack elite of the Lubny Regiment in its regional and national contexts. The study also proposes a questionnaire structure that allows us to identify career trajectories, social connections, economic activity, and the degree of political influence of the regimental officers. Conclusions. On the basis of the analysis of historiography, sources and prosopographic questionnaires, the article identifies the possibilities of using the prosopographic method to study regional elites, in particular, the sergeant major of the Lubny regiment in the structure of the Hetmanate.
Oleksandr Barsukov (Wed,) studied this question.