HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF MILITARY PERSONNEL REHABILITATION IN UKRAINE (10TH – EARLY 20TH CENTURIES)

Abstract

The article is devoted to a comprehensive historical and legal study of the evolution of military personnel rehabilitation systems in Ukraine from the period of the Rus’ state to the early 20th century. The relevance of the study is determined by contemporary challenges related to the need to provide qualified medical care and rehabilitation to military personnel in the context of full-scale armed aggression, which makes the study of historical experience particularly important for forming an effective modern system of social protection for veterans. The authors trace the transformation of approaches to warrior rehabilitation from charitable assistance to a legally enshrined obligation of the state. The study covers several key historical periods. The first stage (10th–13th centuries) is characterized by the formation of church-monastic medicine in Rus’, when after the adoption of Christianity in 988, medical care for wounded druzhyna warriors was provided mainly in monastic hospitals, which combined the functions of a hospital, shelter, and place of spiritual purification. The next period (14th–16th centuries) is marked by the development of professional medical education through the establishment of Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the Ostroh Academy, which enabled the integration of Ukrainian medicine into the pan-European scientific space. Special attention is paid to the Cossack era (16th–18th centuries), when a unique system of medical support for the Zaporizhian Sich was formed, based on deep knowledge of folk medicine, sanitary and hygienic practices, and quarantine measures. The final stage of analysis concerns the period of the Ukrainian State under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi (1918), when the first attempt was made to create a comprehensive state healthcare system with the allocation of significant budgetary funds and the formation of specialized institutions. The study demonstrates that the Ukrainian historical experience of organizing medical care for military personnel shows unique approaches that deserve further scientific understanding and can be used in creating a modern system of veteran rehabilitation