Among Ukrainian Cossacks, starshyna was a collective noun for admitistrative categories of military officers and state officials.
In common parlance the term referred to the privileged social stratum of the Cossack society.
[1] Sharshyna was subdivided into: Later, sometime after the Khmelnytsky's Uprising, it was also associated with the Ukrainian nobility which derived out of the officership and the Hetman.