This 1821 map of Chernigov Province is from a larger work, Geograficheskii atlas Rossiiskoi imperii, tsarstva Pol'skogo i velikogo kniazhestva Finliandskogo (Geographical atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland), containing 60 maps of the Russian Empire. Compiled and engraved by Colonel V.P. Piadyshev, it reflects the detailed mapping carried out by Russian military cartographers in the first quarter of the 19th century. The map shows population centers (seven gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), state, provincial and district borders, factories, monasteries, and taverns. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends and place-names are in Russian and French. The territory depicted on the map lies within present-day northeastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia. Chernigov (also seen as Chernihiv) was probably founded by the ninth century, and it was one of the most important cities and centers of culture in the era of Kievan Rus’, from the early 11th century to the early 13th century. Its princes sometimes rivalled the grand princes in Kiev. The Mongols under Batu Khan sacked Chernigov in the early 13th century, after which the city receded in status and influence. Lithuania, Muscovy, Poland, and the Crimean khans subsequently jockeyed for control of the region. The Zaporozhian Sich (Cossack Hetmanate) organized itself as a more autonomous political force in the 17th century, based upon its legacy of guarding the southern borderlands from Tatar invasions. The hetmanate offered more local authority, but continued to be manipulated by the larger neighboring powers. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi sought support from the Russian tsar against the Poles, in the form of a military alliance with Muscovy in 1654 through the Pereyaslav Agreement. After a resulting Russo-Polish War, the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667) essentially split the hetmanate into Left-Bank and Right-Bank Ukraine on opposite sides of the Dnieper River. Left-Bank Ukraine became the nucleus for Chernigov Province within Imperial Russia, and was more heavily Russified and Orthodox than Polish-controlled and Catholic Right-Bank Ukraine. After an initial grant of provisional autonomy, the Russian tsars gradually subjugated the independence of the Cossack Host. Catherine the Great ultimately abolished the hetmanate in 1764 and razed it by 1775.