Frank Sysyn The Problem of Nobilities in the Ukrainian Past: The Polish Period, 1569-1648

Where now is that priceless stone which like a candelabra spread its rays, the carbuncle that was among other pearls as a sun among stars, that I wore as a crown on my head—the house of the princes Ostrozky, which with the shimmer of the light of its ancient faith shone more strongly than all others? Where are the other precious and also priceless stones of that crown—the glorious houses of Ruthenian princes, the precious sapphires and priceless diamonds, the princes Slutsky, Zaslavsky, Zbarazky, Vyshnevetsky, Sangushko, Chartorysky, Pronsky, Ruzhynsky, Solomyretsky, Holovchynsky, Kroshynsky, Masalsky, Horsky, Sokolynsky, Lukomsky, Puzyna and others without number? It would be a lengthy affair to count them individually! Where are those who sur­rounded them, the other of my precious jewels, I say—the well-born, glorious, brave, strong and ancient houses of the Ruthenian nation who were renowned throughout the world for their high repute, power and bravery—Khodkevych, Hlibovych, Kyshka, Sapiha, Dorohostaisky, Voina, Volovych, Zenovych, Pats, Khaletsky, Tyshkevych, Korsak, Khrebtovych, Tryzna, Hornoastai, Bokiia, Myshka, Hoisky, Semashko, Hulevych, Iarmolynsky, Cholhansky, Kalynovsky, Kyrdei, Zahorovsky, Meleshko, Bohovytyn, Pavlovych, Sosnovsky, Skumyna, Potii and others? I do not mention here that ample and costly robe of mine, strewn with countless pearls and multicolored stones, with which I was adorned—the principalities and counties in the boundaries of the Ruthenian land.

Meletii Smotrytsky [Teophil Ortolog], Threnos—to jest lament sw. Powszechney Apostolskiej Wschodniej Cerkwie... (Vilnius, 1610)¹

In 1610 Meletii Smotrytsky expressed the anguish of the Orthodox church over the desertion of so many of her children among the Ruthenian aristocrats, through conversions that reflected more than private decisions about faith or a widespread conviction of the truth of Roman Catholicism.

Research on the Ukrainian Nobility

The laments of Smotrytsky and his contemporaries deeply influenced Ukrainian historical thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the intervening two centuries, Khmelnytsky’s revolt had swept away the old social order in the central Ukrainian lands. A new nobility of Cossack officers (Starshynashliakhta) formed in the Hetmanate, but in the eighteenth century was in its turn absorbed into the Russian imperial nobility (dvoriansto). Although some of the descendants of the old and the new Ukrainian nobilities displayed regional loyalties and contributed both intellectually and financially to the Ukrainian national reawakening of the nineteenth century, most of the descendants of the old nobility identified with Polish culture and the Polish national movement, and most of the new nobility chose Russian imperial culture and the “all-Russian” nation. Deprived of the support of a traditional elite, many historians active in the Ukrainian national movement condemned the nobility, past and present, for betraying its people, and directed their efforts to the common folk. These populist historians lavished their attention and affection on the history of peasants and Cossacks and studied the nobility only reluctantly and unsympathetically.

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars, Ukrainians, Russians and Poles alike, published a wealth of source material and pursued funda­mental studies of specialized topics on the Ukrainian nobility.⁴ All too often, however, the questions that they posed were determined by their own political and national preoccupations. That after more than a half century their approaches to the study of the Ukrainian nobility are in need of revision should, of course, be expected. What is troubling is that their studies included few theoretical works on the question of nobilities in Ukrainian history or comprehensive studies on the development of the Ukrainian nobility.⁵ This gap has not been filled by Soviet Ukrainian historians; since the 1930s they have simply condemned all nobles as economic oppressors and national traitors and have not even continued to publish source materials or studies on specialized topics about the nobility. This paper will consider some of the general problems in writing the history of the Ukrainian nobility as they affect the study of the period from 1569 to 1648 and propose a framework for incorporating prior research and for organizing new studies.

Problems of Ukrainian Social History and the Study of the Nobility

The paucity of synthetic studies and comprehensive works on the nobility can only be partially attributed to the ideological stances of Ukrainian, Polish and Russian historians in the past two centuries.

The historian of the Ukrainian past, and particularly the social historian, must rigorously question his categories and presumptions. The three major challenges to any Ukrainian social history are posed by the frequent disunity of the Ukrainian territories, by discontinuities in the formation of social strata and by the absorption of Ukrainian social groups into those of neighbouring societies.

First, the Ukrainian lands frequently have neither formed a single administrative unit nor shared common institutions. Whenever they were divided among a number of states or administered as unrelated units within one state, the ties uniting the nobilities and elite groups were weakened. For each period, the historian must consider whether the elements of disunity allow the study of the Ukrainian nobility across state and regional boundaries.

Second, social strata have evolved with discontinuities; not only have states and administrations risen and disappeared in the Ukrainian lands, but whole territories have been settled, depopulated and recolonized in recent times. Few institutions and social groups have endured intact through the tumultuous Ukrainian past. A historian of the Ukrainian nobility would be hard put to postulate a clearly evolutionary pattern from the druzhyna of the Kievan princes; through the boyars of Galicia-Volhynia; the princes, pany, and boyars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; the szlachta of the Polish period; the Cossack officer-nobles of the Hetmanate; to the diversified nobility of the Ukrainian lands of the nineteenth century.

A third major challenge in Ukrainian social history derives from the impact on Ukrainian social groups of societies and cultures based outside the Ukrainian territories and drawing their values and traditions from radically different sources. In the early modern period annexations of the Ukrainian lands to the Polish and the Muscovite-Russian states were accompanied by cultural and intellectual changes and by a restructuring of the social order. The impact of neighbouring societies and states has been particularly important in determining the development of elite groups and the historian must carefully consider whether in some periods integration into the Polish or Russian nobility had not proceeded so far as to preclude the existence of a distinct “Ukrainian” nobility.

A Characterization of the Nobility in Ukraine, 1569-1648 The writing of histories of the Ukrainian nobility for discrete periods poses fewer methodological problems than does a study over a longer time span. The years 1569 to 1648 form a clearly distinct period in Ukrainian political and social history. Politically, it begins with the inclusion of almost all Ukrainian lands into the Kingdom of Poland and ends with the Khmelnytsky uprising that terminated Polish rule in the eastern Ukrainian territories. Socially, it begins with the transformation of all Ukrainian elite orders into a Polish-type nobility or szlachta, and ends with the destruction of the nobility’s political and economic position in the eastern Ukrainian lands. Although the szlachta order survived in the western Ukrainian territories, the mid-century wars and their consequences substantially altered the composition and the political, economic and cultural configuration of the nobility.

Exponents of comparative history have used the term “noble” to de­scribe hereditary traditional elite groups throughout the world. In their call for comparative studies of nobilities, Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre define the idea of a nobility as embodying three elements: ^tTheredite, Ie prestige, et quelque chose de commun et de Caracteristique dans Ie genre de vie des individus.”⁶ Thus, just as the concept of “feudalism” has been used to de­scribe political, social and economic systems far removed in time and place from its European prototype, so “nobility” has been used in a broader context. It has, however, retained a narrower identification with the West European elites that evolved from the high feudal lords, knights and landed notables of the Middle Ages. In the broad sense, Ukrainian nobilities existed from the formation of the Kievan polity in the tenth century. But in discussing the nobility of the period from 1569 to 1648, it is necessary to discuss the nobilities of Western and Central Europe that served as models for elites in the Ukrainian lands during the late medieval and early modern periods.

The mores and laws of the evolving feudal elites (coats of arms, feudal law, military ethos) transcended realms and spread far beyond Northwestern Europe. What constituted living a noble life might vary from region to region, but the perception of a family of kindred European nobilities was deeply embedded in the societies of medieval and early modern Europe. The division of populations into corporate orders among which nobles enjoyed considerable political and economic privileges and rights, often embodied in regional representative institutions, was a distinctive characteristic of West European development. The definition of the noble corporate order differed from realm to realm, particularly over the relationship of great titled lords to petty knights. In countries as diverse as France, Spain and Hungary, the nobility was viewed as includ­ing both the great lord and the impoverished descendant of medieval knights, although the stratification of the nobility was reflected in differing privileges. Because of the unique development of English society, there is frequent confusion and inconsistency in applying the terms “noble” and “gentry” to discuss the French noblesse, the Polish szlachta or the German Adel. These can usually be resolved only by defining whether “nobility is being used for the entire group, as it is in this study, or merely for an upper stratum.⁷

Although the nobilities of Europe had very different political and economic positions in various European polities in the early modern period, they still constituted a pan-European family from Madrid to Vilnius, from Stockholm to Rome. The common heritage and symbols of this otherwise extremely variegated family of nobilities made them perceive the wealthy and powerful of the Ottoman empire, Japan or Muscovy as outside the family, although they realized that these elites often fulfilled military and political roles similar to their own. The existence of this important, albeit amorphous, European noble heritage was confirmed most strikingly when it was imitated.

The Muscovite case is particularly important for the study of nobilities in Ukraine, because it represents a model that came to have great impact on Ukrainian elite groups. In seventeenth-century Muscovy, the literary works, coats of arms and, finally, name of the Polish szlachta spread to the Muscovite elite strata of boiare and dvoriane. In the eighteenth century, Russian rulers from Peter to Catherine created the imperial nobility or dvorianstvo by adopting and transforming the institutions and cultures of European nobilities for Russia’s service elite. Although the old boiare and dvoriane certainly had qualified as “nobles” under the broad interpretation of Bloch’s and Febvre’s definition, the process of selecting and adopting from the social orders and noble cultures of societies to the west indicated that the Muscovite elite was outside the European family. The adaptation of Swedish and French models created a new nobility, but could not substitute for the stages of development in which the Muscovite elite had not participated. The elites of Muscovy had never functioned as a corporate order with guaranteed rights and privileges, representative institutions and regional ties deriving from stable landholding patterns. In the age of absolutism, the newly Westernized Russian nobility of St. Petersburg was very similar to the nobility at Versailles, but the Russian noble and Russian society still bore the imprint of the Muscovite past.’

Viewing the nobility in a narrow sense, as a European corporate order that possessed a core of common culture and traditions, is particularly important for studying early modern East Central European societies. The term “European” has often been endowed with almost mystical significance by East Central European historians, who have often felt unsure of their place in a revered European community and have sought to bolster their national egos in the face of successful Russian and Ottoman domination. While avoiding the controversies about the boundaries and essence of European civilization, one must recognize that the extension of Latin Christian cultural, religious and political institutions to the peoples of East Central Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries stamped their entire sub­sequent development. The East Central European peoples entered a long-term tutelage as the recipients of ideas and institutions evolving in very different societies west of them. Hence in conjunction with West European peoples, they evolved into societies of well-defined corporate orders.’

In the societies divided into corporate orders that evolved throughout most of Europe in the early modern period, the nobilities and their institutions occupied a prominent position in administration and rule. Nowhere was the nobility’s position so strong in relation to other strata of the population and to the sovereigns as in East Central Europe. The great historian of European society and institutions, Otto Hintze, has attributed that dominant role to the transfer of West European institutions to a backward territory that had not experienced West European political feudalism.¹⁰ In Poland and Hungary, as in the other borderland of Europe, Spain, a relatively large percentage of the population succeeded in attaining noble status. In order to study the nobles of Ukraine between 1569 and 1648, it is necessary to discuss the Polish model that shaped the evolution of Ukrainian elites in the late medieval and early modern periods.

The Polish state of the sixteenth century has been called the Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka or “Republic of the Nobles,” an apt designation, since during that time distinctions between the institutions of the noble order or estate and the institutions of the state almost disappeared.¹¹ Although the Polish king reigned, the state functioned as a virtual republic of the “citizen nobles.” After the extinction of the Jagiellonian dynasty in 1572, the monarchy was fully elective and success­ful candidates were bound by election contracts and oaths. In law, the king became one of the political estates that composed the Diet. He continued, however, to retain great power not only because of the authority of the office of king, but also because he distributed offices. No monarch was reconciled to his lot; each sought to transform the kingship into a hereditary office and to obtain a position comparable to other monarchs of the age. The political history of the commonwealth frequently revolved around the king’s plans to change the constitution and the nobles’ vigilant resistance to the slightest increments in royal power.

The major characteristics of the Polish nobility were embodied in its attachment to the concepts of liberty and equality. “Liberty” signified the sweeping political and economic freedoms enjoyed by each member of the nobility; it was assured by numerous royal charters and by systems of elective legislatures and courts. The systems of administration and government were cumbersome, but they did guarantee the nobles’ rights. The concept of liberty even extended to religious toleration. Liberty was a monopoly of the nobles, however, and they increasingly curtailed the rights of the rest of the population. By the end of the sixteenth century, the nobility had used the Diet to place strict limitations on entrance to its corporate order.

“Equality” referred to the absence of legal distinctions or titles within the noble order. Its numerous members, estimated at 8-10 per cent of the population, varied greatly in wealth and power but not in inherited titles, rights and privileges. Offices in the Senate were held for life, but were not hereditary, and were theoretically open to all nobles. The “execution-of-the-laws movement” in the mid-sixteenth century prevented the great nobles from accumulating royal offices and lands. Although great magnates continued to acquire tremendous power and influence, none ever attempted to abolish the principle of equality.

Wealth derived from property and the right to exploit the peasantry attached to it. Allodial ownership of land was the prerogative of the nobility. The king’s court attracted many, both great and small, but it never supplanted the family estate as the noble’s primary residence. Although the greatest magnates could exercise power throughout the realm, most nobles exerted influence at a local level as men of standing in their palatinates. Each palatinate functioned as a mini-republic ever jealous in defence of local privilege.

The maintenance of the entire system demanded a high degree of loyalty and civic responsibility among the nobles. The sixteenth century, an age of particular prosperity for large segments of the Polish nobility, owing partially to the grain trade, was the apogee of Polish “noble democracy,” in which the “middle” nobles exerted great influence on all aspects of Polish politics and culture. Relative peace and weak neighbours assured success in foreign affairs. The outdated levy of the nobility did not have to be called frequently, since the small standing army and mercenaries were sufficient for Poland’s defence. Prosperity served as the basis for a flowering of the arts, education and literature, including the development of a vibrant Polish vernacular. These achievements remained very largely a noble preserve. Knowledge of the classics strengthened dedication to republican virtues. The success of the nobility and its state led to an increasing estrangement from the rest of the population. At first the nobles simply justified their privileges on the grounds that they were the descendants of the knights who had traditionally defended the realm. Eventually, however, they came to see themselves as a different breed; unlike the commoners, they were descended from the ancient warrior Sarmatians. Sarmatism or the Sarmatian myth offered an explanation as to why all nobles, despite differences in language and descent, were closely related. It also served to emphasize the differences between nobles and commoners.

In sum, the Polish noble system that spread to Ukraine was based on the recognition of broad individual rights for each noble, on the affirmation of legal equality for a numerous, but economically diverse noble order, on the exclusion of other strata of the population from government, on the diminution of the rights of the monarch, on regionalism and decentralization, on the substitution of the nobility’s corporate institutions for those of the state and on the creation of a noble republican ideology based on the Sarmatian myth.

The Polish szlachta order of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries appealed to the elites in the surrounding territories, and its political and cultural influence was felt from Prussia to Moldavia. Its greatest impact was in the vast domains of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, especially after the union of Poland and Lithuania in 1386. The elite and service orders of the grand duchy, which had hitherto varied not only in wealth and power, but also in titles and privilege, gradually began to assume the characteristics of the Polish szlachta. The lower strata of the elite had to struggle to free themselves from onerous obligations to rulers and great lords and, for some time, service obligations for landholdings remained in force. Initially, the Orthodox elite were not permitted to attain full noble status (e.g., coats of arms) and offices. Yet although the economy, military situation, and ethnic and religious composition of the grand duchy remained markedly different from those of Poland, the elite of the grand duchy adopted the ideology of the Polish szlachta. The Union of Lublin of 1569 was not so much a unification of the two states, as a recognition of the merger of their respective nobilities.¹²

The “Commonwealth of the Two Nations” that resulted from the Union embodied the unity of the nobility in the new joint Diet. Union did not bring total fusion; the administrative structures of the two states remained separate, and in neither case did loyalty to the commonwealth supersede particularism. In practice, the nobles of the grand duchy jealously guarded the integrity of their fatherland against infringements by their brother nobles.

The expansion of the “Republic of the Nobles” eastward was not limited to Polish influence on the institutions and inhabitants of the grand duchy; it had its effects on the Polish state and its nobility as well. Lithuania s hostilities against Muscovy taxed the finances and institutions of the hitherto more secure Polish nobility. The princes and magnates of the territories of the grand duchy, who far surpassed in wealth and power the magnates of the Polish lands, formed an oligarchy of almost independent territorial rulers and made a sham of the principle of noble equality. Finally, the transfer of the Volhynian and Kievan lands to the Kingdom of Poland directly involved the Polish state and nobility in the turbulent prob­lems of the Ukrainian frontier.

In the period from 1569 to 1648, the elite of the Ukrainian lands belonged fully to the pan-European family of nobilities in its Polish variant. This period marked the high point of the process of Central European and Latin Christian influence in the Ukrainian territories. As with the transfer of so many West European institutions (for example, the Magdeburg city law), that of the institutions and traditions of Central European nobilities to Orthodox East Slavic territory involved both contradictions and frictions. Yet, however much the Ukrainian population resisted, adopted and then transformed these influences, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century the legal norms and social structures of the Latin West took hold in the Ukrainian lands. With these came the formation of a clearly defined noble order, with its corporate institutions, duties and privileges. The fact that Muscovite society did not undergo a similar process created a fundamental difference between political cultures and social orders of the East Slavic peoples that had far-reaching consequences for Ukraine after the middle of the seventeenth century.¹³

The Nobility of 1569-1648 and the Problems of Ukrainian Social History

Before discussing specific problems for the study of the nobility of the Ukrainian lands between 1569 and 1648, we must confront the questions raised earlier, of political unity, historical continuity and outside penetration. In fact, these questions cannot always be sharply demarcated since they pertain to related events and phenomena.

A certain political unity for Ukraine was assured by the Union of Lublin, which brought almost all Ukrainian ethnic territories under the Kingdom of Poland by uniting the formerly Lithuanian lands of Volhynia and Kiev (after 1569 constituted as the palatinates of Kiev, Volhynia and Bratslav) and of Podlachia¹⁴ with the former Polish palatinates of Ruthenia, Podillia and Belz. The new state borders both united the Lviv and Kiev regions and separated the Kiev region from the ethnic Belorussian lands. Political unity was accompanied by increasing uniformity of noble privileges and institutions for all nobles in the Ukrainian territories, but this did not result in a well-integrated distinct noble elite within a Ukrainian administrative unit. The commonwealth was a diune, not a triune, state: the Rus⁵-Ukrainian lands had nothing like the status of either the grand duchy or the kingdom. No common administrative institutions existed for the Ukrainian lands. The palatinates formed from the newly annexed Volhynian and Kievan lands were appended to the kingdom as part of the administrative division of Little Poland and were legally no more closely associated with the palatinates of Ruthenia and Podillia than with those of Cracow or Lublin. The period be­tween 1569 and 1648 had brought almost all the Ukrainian nobles into one political entity, but the lack of any common Ukrainian administration or institutions prevented a common territorial loyalty for the nobles of pre-1569 Lithuania and Poland.

Despite the inclusion of most Ukrainian lands in one political entity, the decision to select the nobles of Ukraine as a subject of historical inquiry is not self-evident. Scholars agree on the importance of studying the decentralized commonwealth region by region. The palatinate, as the centre of the nobility’s political life, is the basic unit for local study, though larger units can be combined to examine regional patterns. The eastern Ukrainian palatinates, with their distinct history and shared administrative practices, form a coherent unit. Yet although similar privileges furthered the political integration of the elite of the four eastern Ukrainian palatinates (Volhynia, Kiev, Bratslav and Chernihiv), even they had few offices or institutions in common. Combining the western and eastern Ukrainian lands for study is not as clearcut a choice. In particular, the greater integration of the western Ukrainian lands into the Kingdom of Poland must always be kept in mind. Including all the Ukrainian lands together may be partly explained on territorial grounds. Certainly they shared the sixteenth-century steppe frontier that extended as far as Lviv and Kamianets-Podilskyi.

A more basic reason for this grouping is the cultural-religious bond of many nobles in these territories. Although Polish influence had resulted in a greater proportion of Roman Catholics and immigrants from Polish territories in the western lands, a considerable segment of nobles in that area still adhered to the Orthodox church and Ruthenian culture, making them part of the Rus’ community. It is true that in the period from 1569 to 1648, more and more Rus’ nobles forsook their ancestral faith and tongue. However, it may be argued that the dynamics of this cultural process, and in particular the opposition of some of the nobles in both west and east, who defended traditional ways, make the combination of the two regions desirable. All these factors speak for considering the Ukrainian lands as a unit when studying the nobility. This should not, however, exclude studies of other geographic divisions such as the eastern Ukrainian lands; all Rus’ lands, including Belorussia; and the old lands of the kingdom (including the Ruthenian palatinate).

The problem of continuity comprises three separate aspects that require examination: the origins and predecessors of the nobility; the changes in the noble order from 1569 to 1648; and the relationship of the pre-1648 nobility to nobilities after 1648.

In all regions of Ukraine, the nobility evolved out of elite groups of Kievan Rus’, with frequent infusions of immigrants. The nobility of 1569 in all Ukrainian lands included descendants of both native elites and immigrants. The varying composition of the nobility reflected the different political fates of the western and eastern Ukrainian territories.

The westernmost Ukrainian population had been influenced by Polish and Hungarian society even before its annexation to Poland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. From the fourteenth century western Ukrainian elites had taken part in the formation of the Polish nobility. The boyar families of Galicia had been joined by immigrants from the Polish territories and from Western Europe. In the steppe land of Podillia, the proportion of immigrants was particularly high. Szlachta privileges were granted to large numbers of defenders of the realm, and the western lands contained a numerous petty nobility. Along the Carpathian belt of the Ruthenian palatinate, large clans of Orthodox Ukrainian nobles, some of Ruthenian and some of Moldavian extraction, shared a limited number of coats of arms (e.g., Sas, Korchak). Although Podlachia was part of the grand duchy in the early sixteenth century, its close historic association with Masovia linked its development with that of the other western Ukrainian territories. While it contained a large number of petty Ruthenian Orthodox nobles, they had been overwhelmed by colonists from Masovia, thus making Podlachia the home of the largest number of Roman Catholic ethnic Polish nobles in the Ukrainian-Belorussian lands.¹⁵

The nobility of the palatinates of Volhynia, Bratslav and Kiev had followed a course of development similar to that of the other nobilities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The decentralized structure of the Lithuanian state and the great distances from Vilnius had assured the distinctiveness of the nobles of the Ukrainian lands. Although the descendants of the Riurikid and Gedimid princes had lost their status as independent rulers, they had retained economic and political influence. In Volhynia, less subject to devastations from the steppe than the Kiev and Bratslav palatinates, a particularly large number of princely families, ranging from the fabulously wealthy to small property holders, controlled the life of the palatinate. Descendants of the great local non-princely families also played a major role in the life of the territories. By the sixteenth century the ziemiane, pany and boyars of the grand duchy had wrested numerous privileges from the grand dukes. The process involved imitation of Polish social and administrative models, and culminated in the 1560s with the final creation of a szlachta order in the grand duchy. The adaptation of the Polish model imposed the noble-commoner distinction throughout the population of the grand duchy. Some of the lower elements of the old elite, such as the boyars of Ovruch, were not admitted to the new szlachta. In 1569 the nobility of the eastern Ukrainian palatinates was largely indigenous or long resident, Orthodox in faith, and Ruthenian in culture.¹⁶

Between 1569 and 1648 no major legal changes affected the position of the nobility, but factors such as migration, cultural and religious assimilation, intra-order relations and landholding patterns did alter its composition, especially in the newly annexed lands. The question of how similar the nobility of 1648 was to that of 1569 has not yet been resolved. In particular, we must ask whether the adoption of the Polish model was merely superficial in the eastern lands, or whether the elite order was transformed in basic ways. The most important political act of the period was the annexation of the Chernihiv lands from Muscovy in 1618. With the formation of the Chernihiv palatinate in 1635 the institutions of the nobility were fully established in this area, which was granted the same privileges as the palatinates of Kiev, Volhynia and Bratslav.¹⁷

For the post-1648 period the problem of the survival of the old nobility is essential to any study of continuity of Ukrainian noble orders. Most nineteenth-century scholars believed that the Khmelnytsky uprising had driven the nobility from the lands in which the Cossacks triumphed. Through painstaking research in the early twentieth century, Viacheslav Lypynsky established that there were in fact thousands of nobles among the Cossack forces and that both through their presence and through their influence the old nobility shaped the new Ukraine.¹⁸ But how many old noble families were present in the Cossack Starshynashliakhta of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century we do not yet know. Particularly important is the transferral of the political and social views of the old nobility to the new elite and the impact of the seventeenth-century revolution on the nobility in the lands retained by Poland.

The problem of influence and penetration must be examined to determine whether integration into the Polish, or rather all-commonwealth, nobility in the period 1569-1648 had gone so far as to preclude study of a “Ukrainian” nobility altogether. Indeed, the transformation of elite groups in Ukraine into a Polish-type szlachta before 1569 and the further integration of this nobility into the szlachta of the entire commonwealth between 1569 and 1648 are the two dominant themes of the nobility’s development in Ukraine. The nobles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania underwent a similar course of development after 1569 even though they retained a political structure that differentiated them from the nobles of the kingdom. It is clear that loyalty to the concept of a pan-commonwealth Sarmatian nobility advanced more quickly than homogenization of customs, adoption of the Polish language or conversion to Roman Catholicism. Most studies of the Polish nobility take a long-term perspective, and in so doing pay little attention to stages and tempos over shorter periods. This practice is particularly questionable for the Ukrainian lands, where the Khmelnytsky uprising drastically changed the composition of the nobility and the context of its political and cultural integration.

Though integration into the commonwealth’s nobility and Poland’s culture had advanced very far by 1648, the nobles of the Ukrainian lands remained sufficiently distinct and cohesive to justify regarding them as a separate group. This was particularly true for the nobles of the newly annexed lands, who were guaranteed a number of privileges that differentiated them from the nobles of Poland. Princes were allowed to retain their titles; the “execution-of-the-laws” statute was not enforced; Ruthenian was the language of administration; the Second Lithuanian Statute of 1566 remained the law of the land; and the Orthodox nobles had special charters affirming full equality with Roman Catholics. Even the nobles in the Ukrainian territories that did not possess legal and administrative institutions markedly different from those of the Polish territory remained distinct. The economic and military affairs of the Ukrainian frontier and the Black Sea basin created an environment very different from that of Masovia or Great Poland. Religion continued to differentiate the nobles of the Ukrainian lands from those of Polish lands since even immigrants from ethnic Poland or converts to Roman Catholicism and Protestantism lived among the numerous faithful of the Eastern church. Although Rus’ was not an administrative unit, it was perceived as a geographic entity that had its own history and traditions and as the homeland of the Ruthenian people. Hence the nobles of Ruthenian-Ukrainian descent served to mark Ukraine off from the Polish territories. Just how distinct the nobles of Ukraine were can only be deter­mined by comparing them with their contemporaries in the Polish territories.

Proposals for Research on the Ukrainian Nobilitv, 1569-1648 ^y

Any work on the “Ukrainian” nobility for the period from 1569 to 1648 must investigate all nobles who inhabited the Ukrainian territories. But al­though a territorial principle should be followed, special attention should be paid to the nobles who by descent, culture and religion belonged to the Ruthenian-Ukrainian tradition. The lines cannot be sharply drawn for a time of interpenetration of populations, cultures and identities, but by studying all the nobles of the Ukrainian lands we will better understand the native Ruthenian element and the process of its transformation under Polish rule. The nobles of Ukraine must be investigated in the context of the nobility of the entire commonwealth. This will allow us to take advantage of the major achievements of Polish scholars of the last thirty years, while at the same time it may provide insights into the Ukrainian dimension so frequently absent in their works. Their writings on the commonwealth cannot be viewed as satisfactory as long as their findings are based on research only on the Polish lands of the commonwealth.

The discussion that follows poses questions and proposes hypotheses on various aspects of the Ukrainian nobility. Much of it challenges assumptions in scholarly literature and is offered in the spirit of sharing preliminary findings and views from research in progress, even though they are not backed up by conclusive evidence. It is the author’s hope that other students of Ukrainian social history will put these hypotheses to the test while carrying on their own research.

Two problems should be kept in mind. First, the Ukrainian lands encompass a large territory and generalizations are difficult to make be­fore sufficient regional research has been undertaken. Second, the accept­ance of the juridical-legal category “noble” as a subject of study produces a large and disparate group. Differences within the group were tremendous and intensive study of the various strata of the noble order is necessary. For many problems the acceptance of seventeenth-century divisions of men may seem to becloud an understanding of economic, social and political processes. Certainly study of the commonwealth’s inhabitants through other criteria is necessary (economic position, religious belief, relation to political power). Yet as unwieldy a group as the nobility is for study, it constituted a self-conscious grouping that shared rights, privileges and responsibilities in early modern Ukraine, and an understanding of it as a totality is necessary to comprehend the period.

The Composition and Economic Position of the Nobility Any study of the Ukrainian nobility must confront the problem of numbers. The estimate that in the seventeenth century the commonwealth’s nobility constituted 8 to 10 per cent of a total population of eight to ten million is based on eighteenth-century statistics projected backward and on scattered landholding and military registers.¹’ Yet even these rough figures are not available for the Ukrainian territories. Estimates of Ukraine’s population range from Jablonowskfs figure of a million and a quarter to a million and a half for the late sixteenth century to Baranovych’s reckoning of five million for the early seventeenth century.²⁰ No attempt has been made to estimate the number of nobles in the Ukrainian territories. The number of families owning peasant-populated lands could be ascertained relatively accurately from published tax records, but the computation of petty nobles without peasant-populated lands and landless nobles could only be estimated by an extensive study of court records, military registers and epistolary and narrative sources.²¹

Although the numbers of the Ukrainian nobility have not been computed, all evidence points to a lower percentage of nobles in the general population than was the case in Polish territories. While Podlachia may have surpassed even Masovia in the percentage of nobles, the other western Ukrainian lands seem to have been well below the average in the commonwealth. The eastern Ukrainian lands, with their concentration of large holdings in a few great magnates’ hands, appear to have contained a very thin layer of nobles at the time of their annexation to the kingdom.²²

Only more thorough study of the size of the noble order in Ukraine will provide an understanding of the political and cultural processes of the period. If indeed the nobles were a smaller percentage of the population in most Ukrainian lands than in the Polish areas, the causes of the tensions of Polish rule in Ukraine will become clearer. A political system that works well when 8 to 10 per cent of its population are privileged would not necessarily function as well if only 2 or 3 per cent have that status. Differences in the size of the noble order would explain migration patterns. The small size of the indigenous elite would encourage migration into Ukraine since the political-cultural system would also be undermanned. Thus, for example, petty Masovian nobles probably found service at the courts of the great magnates because few native petty nobles were availa­ble for those positions. Hence study of the number of nobles must pay particular attention to migratory patterns and social origins. Also a study of the eastward migration of nobles is needed in order to answer questions about the homogenization of the nobles of the commonwealth and about the integration of the nobles within the Ukrainian territories. An examina­tion of the origins of the nobility of the Ukrainian lands throughout the period will provide some explanation of religious and cultural trends. If the native Ukrainian nobles were relatively few in number, it becomes appar­ent why they were not more resistant to linguistic assimilation and religious conversion.

Despite considerable research, we do not know enough about the nobles’ role in the Ukrainian economy and, in particular, about the organization of nobles’ estates. More intensive cultivation, husbandry and exploitation of natural resources (particularly forest products) in sixteenth-century Ukraine has been explained as being in part the result of an expanding population and active economy in the Vistula basin. Conversion of noble lands into manorial estates, increased demand for peasant labour, and specialization in grain for West European markets were the dominant trends in the Polish economy of the sixteenth century. The growing demand for foodstuffs has been seen as the major impetus behind the colonization of Ukraine. But the extent of the colonization and population increase is in dispute and the method of colonization is not fully under­stood. One school of historians claims that the nobility organized the settlement of new lands; another asserts that the peasants pioneered the settlements, only to be followed by the nobles.²³

The most important unresolved problem centres on the organization of agricultural production. The western Ukrainian lands and Volhynia had the advantage of the Vistula river basin, but the Ukrainian territories further east had no access to the Baltic. This makes it unwise to assume large-scale export of grain from those territories. In addition, we do not really know how widespread manorial agriculture based on labour services had become in this territory, since the regulations increasing labour obligations for the peasantry may have preceded actual practice. At least in the frontier regions, payments in cash and kind seem to have predominated over labour services. In studying nobles’ estates, comparisons should be made of techniques and productivity of small estates, large holdings and leased properties. The effects of temporary transfers of property as collateral for debts and the management of lands by stewards and retainers must be examined. Until we know more about the Ukrainian economy, it will be difficult to evaluate the role of the nobility in it. The major obstacle to that study is the scarcity of nobles’ estate records.²⁴

Study of the nobility’s economic activities must be based on examina­tion of landholding patterns. Throughout the commonwealth, the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century was a period of land redistribution in favour of large holders, with a corresponding growth in numbers of very small landholders and landless nobles. It is not yet known whether the Ruthenian and Belz palatinates followed this trend. Even be­fore 1569 the Podillian and Volhynian palatinates were overwhelmingly in the possession of large holders, and their possessions may have increased further after that date. The Kiev, Bratslav and Chernihiv palatinates followed a different course because of their rapid colonization between 1569 and 1648. The statutes of 1590, which declared any land for which no ownership charters existed to be vacant, led to a distribution that ended with the concentration of vast tracts of land in relatively few hands. The large holdings of royal land (starostwa) in these territories were administered by the great magnates. The colonization of the Dnieper basin afforded opportunities for nobles such as Jeremi Wisniowiecki and Stanislaw Koniecpolski to create virtually autonomous domains.²⁵

A number of questions about landholding in the 1569 to 1648 period must be posed. Were large landholdings created at the expense of middle and small holdings throughout Ukraine or were all segments of the nobility increasing their holdings in hitherto underpopulated areas of the Dnieper basin? Did the proportion of land owned by nobles increase in relation to royal and church lands between 1569 and 1648? How rapid was the redistribution of lands among the nobles through marriage, purchase and leasing and how frequently were great holdings assembled and lost? What proportion of the nobles’ lands was administered by stewards? How much Ukrainian territory passed to new immigrants from Poland or to families resident in Polish territories? Past discussions of Polish nobles’ penetration of the lands annexed at the Union of Lublin have been based on impressionist data. Only comprehensive studies of the change in landholding patterns over the entire period for all strata of the nobility will prove whether seventeenth-century assertions of an increasing Polish presence were justified.

Landholding patterns reflected the internal structure of the noble order, in particular the dominant position of the magnates. The existence of powerful magnates in the eastern Ukrainian territories before 1569 and the formation of virtually independent magnate domains in the Dnieper basin between 1569 and 1648 have been viewed as deforming influences on the Polish political system of “noble democracy.” The eastern Ukrainian lands contained a magnate stratum that possessed not only wealth and power, but also traditions of dominance and, in some cases, princely titles. Although it has long been recognized that the magnates from Ukraine exercised a decisive influence on the political and social structure of the entire commonwealth, no systematic study of the stratum has been undertaken.

The problem has been partly one of definition. Unlike “noble,” “magnate” was not a juridically determined status, and it is a merely de­scriptive term for powerful or important nobles. Thus there are no clear guidelines as to who belonged to the magnate stratum. Even those historians who ascribe magnate status merely on the criterion of landholding admit that regional differences must be taken into account, since, for example, the large holdings of Belz would be swallowed up in the vast eastern Ukrainian domains. One must also consider attributes of power and influence. For example, it is possible that a prince Chetvertynsky surpassed a much richer new immigrant from the Polish lands in power and influence because of the authority he derived from local connections and historical traditions.

Once general criteria are established for defining the magnate stratum, attention must be paid to changes in its composition. How many new families from Poland entered it? How many old families died out? How frequently did local families rise to magnate status and how many magnate families became impoverished? The evidence is readily available, but hitherto historians have dealt with examples and impressions.

The relationship of the magnates to other strata of the nobility must be investigated more thoroughly. It is clear that legal rights did not immedi­ately eradicate obligations of service by the lower to the higher elite strata. In certain cases (e.g., creation of the legally entailed domain or ordynacja of the Ostrozky family), recognition of the special relation of a magnate to his domain and servitors was legislated. Certainly, the new noble servitors who immigrated into Ukraine to serve the magnates were not “equal brother” nobles in practice. The retention and development of subinfeudation in Ukrainian noble society must be more fully treated.²⁶

Although the middle nobility has been viewed as the backbone of the “Republic of the Nobles,” little attention has been paid to this stratum in the Ukrainian territories. It has been presumed that this group was overshadowed by the magnates. Yet while middle nobles may have been less significant than in the Polish territories, they had been an important factor in the decision to unite with Poland in 1569. The western Ukrainian territories and Volhynia had networks of well-established middle noble families who should be carefully studied before generalizations about the overriding importance of the magnates in Ukraine are accepted. Endowed with Szlachta privileges, the middle nobles had considerable opportunity to obtain wealth and education. Hence, they had the tools to make their voices heard in the dietines and courts of Ukraine. In addition, as more magnates abandoned the Orthodox church, positions of church leadership opened up to the middle nobles, who led the movement for the defence of

Orthodoxy in the early seventeenth century.²⁷

The petty nobles formed a large and variable group. There were small landholders who owned a few plots of land worked by peasant serfs. Some worked their land with hired labourers or with only the labour of their families. Others were landless, living on the fringes of rural society, work­ing in free professions or serving the households of magnates or middle nobles. In regions such as Podlachia, the Carpathian crests of the Ruthenian palatinate and the Ovruch area of the Kievan palatinate, large numbers of nobles sharing a surname and a coat of arms existed in villages. The most important differentiation in noble society was between landed and landless, for political right was seen as derived from ownership of land in a region and the participation of non possessionati in the dietines of the palatinates was frequently challenged. Studies on the petty nobles in Ukraine will probably confirm that except in Podlachia, they were much less numerous and hence less influential than in the Polish territories. There is evidence that on a regional basis they were major political actors, as in the Przemysl land, where they conducted a campaign against a Uniate bishop that embroiled the region in turmoil for decades. The links of the indigenous petty nobility to the Orthodox church appear to have been strong and their role in providing cadres for the church and Ukrainian cultural institutions must be examined. Since the power of magnates depended on their retainers, the careers of petty nobles as servitors in the magnates’ military and financial affairs must be studied. It would appear that in general, the positions were filled not by the less numerous petty nobles of the Ukrainian lands but by immigrants from Polish territories. The much touted noble equality must be carefully measured against the great disparities of wealth and power within the noble order of Ukraine.²⁸

Nobles and Other Strata of the Population

In the world view of the nobles of the commonwealth, the fundamental dis­tinction between men was that between nobles and commoners. To be on the noble side of the divide was a much sought after status. The divide ran through the old elite groups of Ukraine with gross inconsistencies, reflecting historical development and sheer chance. Thus numerous military frontiersmen and servitors in the Carpathians entered the nobility, while more prominent eastern Ukrainian boyars were denied noble status. In particular, the existence of boyars in the Ukrainian lands after 1569 impeded any clear-cut division of society into nobles and commoners, al­though boyars without noble status were increasingly deprived of their privileges as members of a military elite stratum. Once recognized as noble, one passed the status on to all descendants, and only by committing treason or taking up the life-style of a burgher or a Cossack could one place one’s status in jeopardy. One was a noble because one’s ancestors had been nobles, but the records were often scarce and claims to noble status were often difficult to prove or disprove.

Although the Polish-Lithuanian nobility had become a self-regulating corporate order that allowed few ennoblements after the end of the sixteenth century, numerous commoners gained entry through bribery and a variety of other tricks, including adoption by noble families and false testimony purchased from noble witnesses. It seems likely that such practices were widespread in Ukraine, where record-keeping began late and destruction of documents was frequent. Migration to a new area was a useful expedient for the determined social climber, and eastern Ukraine must have been an ideal place for the newly minted noble to start again. It is not known how many of the “petty nobles” immigrating to eastern Ukraine assumed noble status as they travelled to a new land. The immigrant was at an advantage over local boyars, burghers and Cossacks in asserting claims to be a noble, since local men of substance aspiring to take up the noble life were too well-known to succeed in chicanery. The frustration of powerful Cossack officers and wealthy Kievan burghers in yielding precedence to penurious nobles from Masovia must have increased if they doubted the noble origins of the newcomers. Only future research can determine the validity of these suppositions.²⁹

As for relations of the nobles to other orders of the population, a num­ber of generalizations that have been posited for the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth must be scrutinized with data from the Ukrainian territories. It has generally been assumed that the nobility became more estranged from other social strata and played an increasingly important role in all aspects of political, economic and cultural life throughout the commonwealth from 1569 to 1648. Certain peculiarities of the Ukrainian territories point to significant divergences from this pattern. In particular, eastern Ukraine was an area of frontier conditions and new settlements, where rigid distinctions between corporate orders were difficult to enforce, a situation that surely affected the nobility and the relations of the nobles with the rest of the population.

Although the nobles of Ukraine enjoyed the same sweeping rights over their lands and the peasants inhabiting them as the nobles in the rest of the commonwealth, relative underpopulation, abundance of lands and unstable conditions gave the Ukrainian peasantry significant advantages in resisting noble dominance. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, new agricultural settlements were formed throughout the Ukrainian territories, and the noble had to attract peasants to his lands. The peasantry of the Carpathians and the Dnieper basin had not been fully subjected to a noble landowning class, and in the Dnieper basin frontier conditions allowed for a rough-and-ready democracy that at times blurred the practical distinction between orders. Tatar raids assured that the peasants learned martial arts. The peasants also had a wide variety of outlets for expressing their dissatisfaction. In a newly colonized, underpopulated land, they could move on to another landlord who would be less demanding. The newness of settlements and land titles also made changing orders possible; one simply moved to any of the numerous settlements governed by urban law that had sprung up throughout the area. Then, too, the Cossack life beckoned, and new lands awaited the adventuresome beyond the Muscovite border. Finally, the numerous Cossack revolts (1590s, 1625, 1630, 1635-8) also provided the peasants with ample opportunity to challenge the nobles’ regime. Spurred on by the desire to increase revenue and to exercise the prerogatives enjoyed by nobles in Masovia or Great Poland, the nobles of Ukraine conducted a relentless struggle to subjugate the peasants. Their success was much greater in the West than in the East.³⁰

The relationship of the nobles to the burghers, the diverse inhabitants of the cities, must also have differed substantially from that in the western territories of the commonwealth. After the formation of the nobles’ commonwealth, the cities and burghers played a minor role in the state’s political life. The one great city of the land, Gdansk, was almost cut off from the commonwealth’s body politic and its largely German partriciate chose to seek greater autonomy from Warsaw rather than a greater role in the government. Except for the Baltic littoral, above all Royal Prussia, cities were weakly developed in the commonwealth, and their political and economic positions relative to that of the nobles declined in the period from 1569 to 1648. The upper stratum of the burghers failed to produce a culture that could compete with that of the nobles and instead sought to mimic the latter.

Until the mid-sixteenth century, the Ukrainian lands could be described as an extreme example of the weakness of cities and the burgher groups throughout the commonwealth. Cities were small in size and few in numbers and the great nobles dominated most aspects of urban life. But the economic b∞m and population growth in the Ukrainian lands enhanced the development of cities and burgher communities and created some divergences from the general pattern of noble-burgher relations.

Lviv remained the largest city on Ukrainian territory and continued to thrive. Other, smaller cities in the West also showed signs of vitality. The period was one of urban rebirth in the Dnieper basin; ancient cities grew and numerous new towns were founded. Kiev expanded rapidly, almost surpassing Lviv, and the old capital of the Rus’ princes thrived as its political and cultural elite rebuilt the city’s ruins and re-established its po­sition as an Orthodox ecclesiastical and cultural centre. Royal and private settlements under urban law multiplied, particularly in the Kievan palatinate where half the population lived in settlements under urban law. True, most of these settlements were urban in name only; the full rights of the West European burghers were withheld from them and private cities were dominated by magnate owners. Many were merely fortified agricultural settlements. But this large-scale granting of urban rights still resulted in a population in Dnieper Ukraine markedly different from that of western Ukraine and most of the Polish territories. The nobles accepted the existence of a large population that could exercise significant, albeit limited, urban privileges. This is not to say that the burghers challenged the nobles’ rule in Ukraine or that the nobles did not frequently infringe on the few privileges granted to burghers in private cities. But whether in great royal cities or in private farming towns, the burghers formed a sig­nificant group that was not fully subjugated to the nobles. Settlements similar to the eastern Ukrainian agricultural towns were serf villages in the Polish territories. In much of Ukraine, self-interest and recognition of local conditions induced the nobles to accept a social structure very different from that of the western territories of the commonwealth. While the detrimental effects of the nobles’ policies and exactions on the burghers and cities of Ukraine have been well documented, the influence of the proportionally numerous burgher order in areas of Ukraine has not been explored.³¹

Noble-burgher relations in Ukraine also reflected the religious and ethnic heterogeneity of the Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian cities not only had a large Jewish population, which, as in Polish cities, was excluded from urban rights and jurisdiction and existed under its own law and royal privileges, but also influential Armenian communities living under separate jurisdiction. The existence of these groups, who were often in competition with the burghers under the city magistrate, afforded the nobles an opportunity to play one urban faction off against another. The burgher order proper was divided into Catholic and Orthodox segments, though in many cities only Catholics enjoyed full burgher privileges. Although weight of numbers negated restrictions against the Orthodox in many areas of the Dnieper basin, the persecution of Orthodox burghers by Catholic patriciates and guilds made the cities centres of religious and national tensions even before the rise of intolerance during the Counter

Reformation and the controversies over the Union of Brest.

The conflict between largely Polish, Catholic burghers and largely Ukrainian, Orthodox burghers in the Ukrainian cities gave noble-burgher relations an aspect absent in the Polish territories. Communal tensions in the Ukrainian cities gave the Ruthenian-Ukrainian burghers a stimulus to adopt cultural tendencies emanating from the West to defend and reform the Ruthenian Orthodox Church. The role of the burghers of Lviv and their bratstvo (brotherhood) in Ukrainian ecclesiastical affairs, printing and education is the outstanding example. Yet although the Lviv Brotherhood was primarily an organization of burghers, it later enrolled Ukrainian nobles, including magnates. Brotherhoods in Lutske, Kiev and other cities similarly included nobles, Cossacks and clerics, along with burghers. The existence of important civic, cultural urban institutions that included both nobles and commoners indicates that the Ruthenian Orthodox nobles’ relation to the Ruthenian burghers differed significantly from that of their Polish counterparts. The Ruthenian burghers’ influence went beyond mere intellectual and cultural contacts. They not only exhorted the nobles to remain firm in Orthodoxy and to render them aid, but also provided the noble adherents of Orthodoxy with financial assistance. The Lviv Brotherhood was even able indirectly to influence the Diet through Orthodox planning sessions on tactics that the Orthodox noble delegates were to follow. The initial intellectual and cultural unpreparedness of the Ukrainian Orthodox nobility for challenges from Protestants and Catholics, followed by the conversion of many nobles to those faiths, increased the importance of the burghers in the Ukrainian Orthodox community. The nobles still controlled the church and the community, but the failings in their leadership ensured close co-operation with the burghers.³²

The nobles of the eastern Ukrainian lands had to deal with a stratum in the population that did not exist elsewhere in the commonwealth—that is, with the Cossacks. Though the government and the nobles depended on the Cossacks in times of war, as the nobles extended their landholding south and east the insubordinate Cossack population became a major irritant. The nobles of the Ukrainian lands, like those of the commonwealth as a whole, rejected Cossack demands for political and economic rights. Denied the privileges of every petty Masovian noble, the Cossacks attempted to retain and expand their de facto rights through foreign adventures and rebellions. As a result, the landowning nobles of the Ukrainian areas were adamant in asserting the need to subjugate them.

Relations between the nobles and Cossacks, however, were not entirely hostile and rancorous. In practice, the magnates who dealt summarily with

the Cossacks did the same with small noble landowners, which may well have bred some feeling of alliance between the two latter groups. Nobles played an important role in the Cossack Host; in the mid-sixteenth century great lords were frequently Cossack leaders and by the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century numerous petty nobles had joined the Cossack Host, whether in an effort to escape their old lives or tempted by the economic opportunities the Cossack life presented. In doing so they placed their status as nobles in jeopardy, and as a result became vociferous proponents of full recognition of the Cossacks as a privileged order.

In practice, Orthodox nobles also co-operated with the Cossacks in other ways, which, in the 1610s and 1620s, allowed the Cossacks to assume a major role in Orthodox religious and cultural affairs. Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, who appears to have descended from a noble family of the Sambir region, endowed a chair in Greek studies in the Lviv Brotherhood’s school and enrolled the Host in the Kiev Brotherhood. Devout Orthodox nobles enlisted the support of the Cossack hetman in restoring the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620. Although the Orthodox nobles might be opposed to Cossack demands and turbulence, they had still to rely on the Cossacks if they were to achieve political and religious goals. However anti-Cossack the nobles were as a group, many individual nobles still had good reason to support Cossack actions and demands.³³

The Cossacks were not a monolithic group in the period from 1569 to 1648. Registered Cossacks, never more than eight thousand in number in times of peace, were a recognized social grouping. Behind them stood the tens of thousands of men who followed the Cossack way of life and swelled the armies of the commonwealth in time of danger. The Ukrainian frontier had afforded an opportunity for a new social order to emerge from the inhabitants of the commonwealth. But the Cossacks, particularly those not in the register, were just the most salient of a large number of men who remained outside the stable categories of noble, peasant, burgher and clergyman. Everywhere there were rootless men—adventurers, paupers, bandits and vagabonds who had broken their ties with the traditional orders. These elements posed a problem for the authorities throughout the commonwealth, but it was only in the Ukrainian frontier that they could find a relatively secure haven, particularly among the unregistered Cossacks. The nobles of Ukraine, like their fellows throughout the commonwealth, railed against the “stray men,” but without finding a solution to the Cossack problem there was no hope of putting an end to the “stray men” in Ukraine.³⁴

The relation of three other segments of Ukraine’s population to the nobility must be discussed: the clergy, the legally-defined religious-national minorities (Jews and Armenians) and the military. In the first and third groups, nobles provided the leadership. The second group was enmeshed in the nobles’ economic and social system.

Excluding the clergy, the traditional first estate, from Ukraine’s major corporate orders may seem questionable since clergymen were a well-defined corporate group that enjoyed juridical and financial privileges. Yet the clergymen of the commonwealth differed from the nobles, peasants, burghers and Cossacks in that they straddled the divide between nobles and commoners. The clergy functioned as a group parallel to the laity, with important churchmen drawn from the nobles and lower clergymen from the commoners. Service in the churches did not negate noble status, and the noble-bishop or noble-abbot often identified more strongly with his brother-nobles than with his fellow-clergymen. This phenomenon can be seen in both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern ⁴Qrthodox Churches.

The composition of the clergy as a mirror image of lay society stemmed from the laity’s rights to patronage. In the fifteenth century the Polish kings gained the right to select Roman Catholic bishops, while the nobles exercised patronage over country livings. Since Roman Catholic bishops were senators of the commonwealth and most high church offices conveyed substantial benefices, the nobles legislated that candidates must be chosen from their own ranks. Although the reforms of the Catholic church of the late sixteenth century intensified religious convictions and loyalty to Rome among the clergymen, the Roman church never challenged the imposition of the commonwealth’s social structure on the clerical order.³⁵ In the Orthodox church, royal and lay rights to patronage were even more sweeping. While the Catholic kings of Poland had to deal respectfully with the wishes of Rome, they could treat the Orthodox patriarchs of Constantinople, the subjects of the Ottoman porte, with less deference. In the sixteenth century the kings selected their supporters to fill positions in the bishoprics and the major monasteries, while the nobles expanded their rights of patronage over parish churches and smaller monasteries. Although Orthodox, and later Uniate, bishoprics did not convey senatorial chairs, the positions did confer wealth and power. As in the Catholic church, the nobles reserved all major posts for themselves.³⁶

In examining the relations of the nobles of the Ukrainian lands to the clergymen and churches, one must take into account the difference in the religious composition of these areas from other lands in the commonwealth and the drastic changes in religious affairs between 1569 and 1648. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth differed from most of Europe in its religious toleration, a policy derived from the persistent presence of a powerful Orthodox minority and based on the guarantee of religious toleration issued at the Confederation of Warsaw in 1573. In practice, however, religious freedom was chiefly the prerogative of the nobility. Throughout the commonwealth, Catholicism recuperated its losses in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

In the Ukrainian lands, with the possible exception of the far-western territories, most inhabitants, including nobles, were Orthodox in 1569. Roman Catholic bishoprics were few and a network of Catholic parishes hardly existed in the eastern territories, where lands belonging to the Catholic church formed a small part of total landholdings. Between 1569 and 1648 the Roman Catholic Church made great strides in numbers and wealth, owing mainly to conversions among the nobles. Even so, a large proportion remained adherents of the Eastern church. The king’s distribu­tion of Orthodox church offices as benefices to supporters brought the Orthodox church to its moral nadir in the sixteenth century, but in the 1570s an active reform movement restored its authority. Still, numerous conversions of nobles from Orthodoxy continued, with a large share going to the Calvinists. From the 1620s to the 1640s nobles in the Volhynian and Kievan palatinates constituted a major segment of the radical Socinian church, but by this time the Catholic church was making headway against the Protestants. After 1596 the Orthodox church had to compete with the Uniate church for believers. After some initial hesitation most of the nobles opted for Orthodoxy over Uniatism, and chose the Latin rite if they converted to Catholicism. From 1596 to 1632 nobles loyal to Orthodoxy found themselves adherents of a church not officially recognized or tolerat­ed. These nobles played a dominant role in sustaining the church and challenged the laws of the “Republic of the Nobles.” The respect for nobles’ liberties and the weak executive power of the commonwealth assured considerable successes for the intransigent Orthodox, but the hostilities aroused over the struggle opened fissures in the unity of Ukraine’s noble order.³⁷

Although the outlines of the religious situation emerge from commentaries of the time and scattered evidence, there has been no systematic study of the changes in the nobility’s religious allegiances. A number of studies have attempted to establish when the great families abandoned Orthodoxy, but there is insufficient evidence to allow for generalizations about middle and petty nobles and about regional variations.³⁸ Nothing has been done to correlate career advancement, property holdings and leasings, educational experience and marriage choices with religious preferences.

The nobles’ relations with the clergymen and the churches must be examined on three levels: their attitudes toward the clergy, their relations with the churches as institutions, and their religious beliefs and personal piety. Religious pluralism complicates any study because conditions differed within the various religious denominations and because a noble inevitably viewed other faiths, churches and clergymen differently from his own. Still, shared attitudes by the nobles about the place of their own order in society created common views that transcended religious allegiances.

The attitudes of the nobles toward individual clergymen were deter­mined by the given clergyman’s social status. Catholic bishops were powerful senators and were often scions of the first families of the land. They commanded respect and deference, and occasionally were influential far beyond church affairs (e.g., Pawel Piasecki and Jozef Wereszczynski).³⁹ Respect declined with lower social origin and office, although the position of the Roman Catholic Church as a favoured minority faith centred mainly in towns and near great nobles’ residences precluded the existence of a large number of humble village priests in the Ukrainian lands. Protestant clerics were a much more plebeian group. The very nobles who saw the abolition of high church dignitaries as a positive reform were little inclined to send their sons to serve the new “cheap” church. Immigrants from Polish and German cities seemed to have filled the pulpits of Ukraine.⁴⁰

The nobles’ attitudes toward the Orthodox clergy were as varied as the clergy’s social origins. Without senatorial status or huge “latifundia,” the Orthodox bishoprics were not sought after by the greatest magnate families. In one instance, however, a member of a ruling family, Petro Mohyla, son of the hospodar of Moldavia, who was related to the greatest magnate families of the commonwealth, served as archimandrite of the Kievan Caves Monastery and metropolitan of Kiev. His election as metropolitan was part of an accommodation between the king and the Orthodox nobles to end the “rebel” status of Orthodoxy after the Union of Brest, and his presence and views assured both greater respect for his church and Orthodox loyalty to the “Republic of the Nobles.”

Most of the sixteenth-century bishops appear to have been nobles of substance (many of whom gave up lay offices and wives to accept holy orders and be consecrated as hierarchs), but the “illegal” status of the church after 1596 decreased the attractiveness of bishoprics, at least until 1632. In general, the defections of the great nobles from Orthodoxy opened up more and more positions to lesser nobles. At the other end of the spectrum were village priests, who at times were taxed and treated as peasants. Not enough is known, however, to make definite statements about the lower clergy’s origins, and the position of a priest in a city or in a village inhabited mainly by nobles was undoubtedly different from that on a magnate’s estate. It seems likely that in many instances the petty nobles actively sought the position of priest, a practice well-documented for later periods in the Carpathian zone. As for the Uniate clergy, the promise that union would elevate their status was not fulfilled; the bishops did not receive seats in the Senate and the clergymen were not viewed as equals of their Latin-rite co-religionists. With a small pool of noble supporters in Ukraine and with scanty church lands, the Uniate church was hard put to attract the vocations of great nobles. It would appear that nobles from the Belorussian territories were the main source of Uniate hierarchs, but that in general the pattern was similar to that of the Orthodox church.⁴¹ All current discussions of the clergy’s origins and nobles’ attitudes must be based on impressions rather than statistical studies.

Although the nobles had successfully penetrated the clerical estate, the clergy retained sufficient autonomy and group solidarity to confound the nobility’s wishes. The guaranteed senatorial chairs of the Roman Catholic bishops gave them an unassailable position in political affairs. Thus successes of the Protestant denominations in converting nobles could never culminate in an all-Protestant Senate. The Catholic bishops could frustrate Orthodox demands even though the majority in the House of Delegates and Senate was in favour of compromise. The nobles whittled away the rights of the clerical courts, but the latter continued to exist. The commonwealth demanded “voluntary” contributions for the military, but the clergymen defended their tax-exempt status. The struggle was, of course, muted by the stake that so many noble families had in church offices. The nobles appreciated the services of clergymen who were, with a few exceptions such as the Socinians, more than willing to preach a Gospel that justified the existing social and political order. The great Jesuit Piotr Skarga quickly abandoned the pro-absolutist tendencies of his West European colleagues and the Orthodox monk-polemicists glorified the princely families of Rus’.⁴²

An important area of noble-clerical friction was over the governance of the churches. The king and nobles had made inroads on the clergy’s dominance of the Roman Catholic Church by appropriating rights to make clerical appointments and by diminishing the clergy’s juridical and financial privileges, but the clergymen still had the weight of tradition, charters and support from Rome to maintain their dominant role in defining the faith and administering the church. Dissatisfaction with this situation led many nobles to convert to Protestantism, but the Catholic church endured intact through a period of uncertainty and revived with even more clerical control after the reforms of the Council of Trent took hold. Increasingly effective clerical influence on education reconciled the nobility to this situation, and antagonism to foreign “heretic” states (Sweden and Muscovy) strengthened loyalty to the Catholic church. The Catholic nobles settled for monopolization of high church offices instead of corporate noble rights within the church.⁴³

The Protestant denominations represented the opposite extreme. Lay nobles dominated the synods of the churches and took an active role in the formulation of dogmas. As faiths of the nobles, rather than the bourgeoisie, Calvinism and Socinianism in Ukraine reflected the noble-dominated social structure. Although elements of the religious and social radicalism of Anti-Trinitarianism influenced the Socinian nobles of the Volhynian and Kiev palatinates, even inducing the liberation of serfs, the noble constituency tended to modify the radical aspects of the faith.⁴⁴

Clergy-Iaity relations were most profoundly transformed in the Orthodox church as the noble-dominated social order imprinted itself on a church that derived its canons and traditions from a very different political-social order. The Orthodox church in Ukraine was in the difficult position of inheriting concepts of church-state relations from Byzantium that were incongruous in a state ruled by a Catholic king. The exercise of patronage rights by the kings of Poland and grand dukes of Lithuania in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had converted high church offices into royal appointments and limited the powers of the patriarch of Constantinople. The low calibre of bishops diminished the hierarchy’s authority. The church turned to the great Orthodox nobles for support, al­though their patronage was often a mixed blessing as it converted village clergy to the thralls of local lords and allowed the lords to challenge the authority of the bishops. When combined with the assault on the bishop’s authority by the urban reform brotherhoods, this challenge was threatening enough to drive some of the bishops toward union with Rome.

Opposition to the Union of Brest further strengthened the position of the nobles in the church, since it was based on the denial of the right of the hierarchs to represent the entire church and on the assertion of Orthodox rights deriving from the guarantees of freedom of religion to the nobility. During the negotiations for the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620 and even more strikingly for the legalization of the Orthodox church in 1632, the nobles spoke for the entire church. In the church councils, the lay house, composed overwhelmingly of nobles, often played a leading role and the clergymen frequently expressed their inabili­ty to come to decisions without the consent of the nobility. Metropolitan Mohyla used his great personal authority to increase the power of the hierarchs, but even he did not dare deny the nobles a significant role in governing the church. He was still dependent on their support in confrontations with the Uniates, as for example in the Przemysl diocese, where the numerous petty nobility kept the Uniate bishop from exercising authority. At the parish level, nobles continued to select clergy, and an Orthodox noble interested in church affairs might prove more difficult to deal with than an indifferent Catholic or Protestant landowner. The nobles’ position in the church contained an element of instability for Orthodoxy because just as the church’s difficult position increased the role of the nobles, more and more nobles were abandoning their faith. The major thrust of noble-clerical relations between 1569 and 1648 was the evolution of an Orthodox church far different in structure and governance from its mother church in Constantinople and its sister church in Muscovy. This triumph of the nobility reinforced traditions of an active laity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy that remain vital to the present day.⁴⁵

The bishops who embarked on the Union did so to augment their own authority, as well as that of the Eastern church. Denied seats in the Senate, the Uniate bishops never obtained their hoped-for equality with the Roman Catholic bishops. They did, however, create a church in which bishops and clergy exerted primary influence, though their success in this sphere was largely a result of their failure to win widespread support for the Union. After a short period of hesitation, most Orthodox nobles in Ukraine came out against the Union, thus the governance of the church was placed firmly in the hands of hierarchs, who were deeply influenced by policies emanating from Rome. These dedicated bishops and monks could seldom depend on consistent support even from Roman Catholic nobles, many of whom looked on the Uniate church with derision. But in failing to win the nobles’ support for the Union, the Uniate clergymen avoided the friction over the laity’s position in the church that would have been inevitable had the entire Orthodox population of Ukraine adhered to the Union of Brest.⁴⁶

The nobles’ relations with the churches as institutions were often contradictory. Diets and dietines legislated against donations of noble lands to ecclesiastical institutions largely because so many individual nobles wished to make donations. Devout Catholic nobles condemned the Catholic church’s obstructionist tactics against the commonwealth’s accommodation with the Orthodox prior to the Smolensk War. Good Orthodox nobles bristled at the contacts of their hierarchs with Moscow and Constantinople. The nobles may have permeated the churches with their cadres and ideology, but the churches remained distinct institutions with international connections and their own ideological traditions. Faced with the defection of the nobles, the Orthodox polemicist Ivan Vyshensky turned to the Christian message of exaltation of the poor and the humble?’ Reinforced by orders from Rome, Catholic bishops ground the wheels of state to a halt. The Union of Brest was not a plot by the nobility to Polonize Rus’ and increase control over the peasants as some scholars have portrayed it. Indeed many nobles thought that it caused unnecessary friction, but were prevented from rectifying the matter by a small group of Uniate and Catholic zealots and the wishes of Rome. In general, the nobles of Ukraine, and the commonwealth as a whole, were able to integrate the churches well into their “Republic of the Nobles,” but the integration was far from complete and the churches at times presented difficult problems to the noble corporate order.

The key to noble relations with the clergy and churches was the religious conviction of each noble. There have been no studies on the religious views of the nobles of Ukraine between 1569 and 1648.⁴’ It would appear that the period was one of regeneration of religious faith and that more and more nobles ceased to regard religion as an ascriptive designation and began viewing it as a personal commitment. Protestant calls for individual decision produced an educated and articulate following among the nobles of the Volhynian and Kievan palatinates, including the major Ukrainian religious and political thinker Iurii Nemyrych, who ultimately returned to the Orthodox faith of his ancestors.⁴’ Catholic devotionalism spread with Jesuit education, and Albrycht Stanisiaw Radziwill, who had holdings in Volhynia, wrote memoirs that embody the new Catholic convictions.⁵⁰ Although their numbers were decreasing, the Orthodox nobles left numerous testimonies to their faith in the foundation charters of new monasteries.⁵¹ Anyone who has read the tribulations of Metropolitan Iosyf Rutsky must be impressed by the depth of faith that inspired those nobles who did serve the Uniate church.⁵² With this new piety came a decline in tolerance and grave consequences for the religious pluralism that had thrived in the sixteenth-century commonwealth, includ­ing Ukraine. However, this new piety should not blind us to the views of numerous nobles who continued to view religion as merely an ancestral inheritance or a beneficial affiliation. Moreover, it is clear that some nobles were influenced by secular ideas and remained indifferent to Christian denominational divisions. The influence of Socinians, who saw many possible paths to salvation, went beyond their own circle. As with so many aspects of the nobility of Ukraine, there exist indications but no conclusive evidence about changes in religious beliefs.⁵³

The Jews and Armenians, religious-national groups organized as legally separate communities under royal charters and protection, occupied important positions in the nobles’ economic and even political affairs. Communal divisions and hatreds between Jewish and Armenian merchants and craftsmen and their Orthodox and Catholic peers allowed nobles to play one group off against the other. Denied access to many of the professions of the Christian community, Jews turned their attention to commercial and artisan trades. The colonization of Ukraine offered Jews an opportunity to escape the overcrowded ghettos of western Poland and the nobles were not slow in enlisting their skills, most significantly for tax-farming, revenue collection, estate management and banking. The symbiotic relations of great lords and Jews aroused hatreds in other strata of the population that were a combination of the anti-Semitism endemic throughout Europe and socio-economic grievances against the noble order in Ukraine. In rebellions culminating in 1648, the Jews, including the urban poor who had little to do with the nobility, were to be the major victims of the wrath against the nobles’ social order.

The emotion-laden issue of the Jewish position in Ukraine has thus far been explored almost exclusively by specialists in Jewish history. In recent years Soviet historians have been so infected by the anti-Semitic line of their government that they even avoid mention of the slaughter of Jews in 1648.⁵⁴ Thanks to the researches of Shmuel Ettinger, Salo Baron and Bernard Weinryb, we have a good picture of Jewish colonization, community life and economic activities that can serve as a basis for an ex­amination of Jewish-noble relations.⁵⁵ For the Ruthenian palatinate, Maurycy Horn has written a study on the Jewish community that includes discussion of its economic relations with nobles.⁵⁶ Further study is needed on Jewish attitudes toward the nobles and contemporary Jewish evaluations of the activities of their community in Ukraine’s socio-political affairs. Conversely, studies on the nobles’ attitudes toward Jews must be pursued, including noble anti-Semitism in a context in which nobles needed and protected Jews. Particular attention should be paid to the differences in attitude of various strata of the nobility, since petty nobles derived little benefit from the Jewish communities, and nobles serving magnates must have viewed Jews as competitors for tax-farms and estate stewardships. Finally, exploration of everyday contacts is needed. Baron has described eastern Ukraine as a land in which a new type of Jew evolved, different in socio-economic and cultural make-up from his co-religionists in the western lands of the commonwealth, and he has pointed out instances of more open Gentile-Jewish relations. Just how this situation affected noble-Jewish relations is not known. Although Baron views the laws granting converted Jews noble status as dead letters, the frontier eastern Ukrainian lands would be a likely area to look for instances of Jews entering the noble order, by legal means or by the subterfuges that Gentiles used.⁵⁷

The small, but economically powerful, Armenian community controlled the eastern trade that supplied the nobles with the luxury goods and the cultural models for Sarmatian noble life. Over the past thirty years the Soviet Ukrainian scholar Iaroslav Dashkevych has carefully studied all aspects of the community’s activities. He has shown that while the Armenian patricians provided the nobles with loans and aspired to, and occasionally succeeded in obtaining, noble status, the poorer Armenian artisans and craftsmen became increasingly estranged from the “Republic of the Nobles,” particularly because of attempts to unite the Armenian Apostolic diocese of Lviv with Rome. As in the case of the Jewish community, the Armenians’ contacts with the nobles and their religious estrangement from the Orthodox and Catholic masses made them targets for the enemies of the noble-dominated socio-economic order.⁵’

The nobles cultivated a military ethos that was becoming increasingly anachronistic. However much they prided themselves on being the traditional warriors of the land, most had been transformed from knights into provincial landowners and the mass levy of the nobility had become an unwieldy and ineffective army. The nobles’ inability to field a modern force did not prompt them to raise taxes for a large professional army. The perilous state of the commonwealth’s military between 1569 and 1648 was not revealed only because of the weakness of neighbours and the limited warfare of the period. The commonwealth took no part in the sixteenth-century wars of religion, nor was it engaged directly in the Thirty Years’ War. The nobles were content with their borders and were careful to avoid a situation in which the Polish king leading a victorious army could strengthen his power. The “Republic of the Nobles” was a pacifist state: even the intervention in the Muscovite Time of Troubles was a result more of the collapse of Muscovy and the adventurism of individual magnates than of an aggressive policy by the Diet. After 1648 the defects in the commonwealth’s military order were to bring disaster after disaster.⁵⁹

Wars, arms and violence affected the nobles in three ways: service in the army provided them with a profession and a means of advancement and enrichment; the army as an institution drew off revenue and constituted a political force; and possession of private troops and arms gave nobles power that could be used internally and in foreign affairs.

As elsewhere in Europe, the sons of Ukraine’s noble houses joined the military, since it constituted one of the major avenues for occupational and social advancement. Although many nobles made brilliant careers and achieved magnate status through service in the forces of the commonwealth, the small size of the standing army limited the number engaged in long-term military service. Only during the periods of major hostilities could large numbers of nobles obtain rewards through military service in the commonwealth’s army. The relatively successful wars against Muscovy and less successful confrontations with Sweden and the Ottoman Turks gave the commonwealth’s nobles the opportunity for advancement in military campaigns, but did not make war the dominant occupation for the entire nobility. In contrast to the turbulent period after 1648, the majority of the nobles were not at this time constantly engaged in battle. A solitary mass levy of the nobility was called in 1620-1 to resist an Ottoman offensive. For the poor or adventurous, foreign service remained an outlet and foreign powers recruited in the commonwealth during the Thirty Years’ War.⁶⁰

The nobles of Ukraine were, however, much closer to the ideal of knights than were their fellow nobles in Poznan and Samogitia. Tatar attacks and peasant and Cossack rebellions ensured that the local nobles frequently were called to service. There is no evidence that the nobles of the Ukrainian lands were more likely to pursue careers in the standing army or enlist for short-term stints than the nobles of other areas of the commonwealth, but this assumption would seem likely because of the more widespread militarization of the inhabitants of the Ukrainian lands and the quartering of the standing army in Ukraine. In any event, rewards for military service were likely to be distributed in the eastern Ukrainian lands, thus steadily increasing the numbers of local nobles who rose through military ranks.⁶¹

The quartering of the standing army in Ukraine made the army loom much greater in the lives of local nobles than in those of nobles in other areas of the commonwealth. It would appear that the Ukrainian nobles were more willing to raise taxes for the army than the nobles of core Poland since they benefited directly from its services in defence of their estates. The army’s leaders could influence local politics. The hetmans of the Polish army were usually magnates in the Ukrainian lands who expanded their private holdings through the influence of their office. Yet however grateful the local nobility may have been to the standing troops in times of danger, their presence in times of peace inevitably evoked tensions with the local population. The frequent mutinies and military confederations in the kingdom’s armies provided an element of instability in noble affairs. At times the nobles joined these confederations to thwart royal power, such as during the Zebrzydowski rebellion of 1606-9.⁶²

The most salient difference between most of the Ukrainian territories and the other lands of the commonwealth was the higher level of instability, violence and use of private arms. The banditry and violence within the noble order that marked noble life throughout Europe seems to have been even more widespread in the undergoverned commonwealth with its cumbersome system of justice and legal enforcement. If the commonwealth nobles suffered less than their Central European brethren in the first half of the seventeenth century, it was because their society was spared the upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War. Although the Masovian and Great Polish nobles were part of this pattern of internal violence, the Ukrainian nobles lived in an environment in which the opportunities and means for internal warfare were considerably greater. Frequent Tatar raids and Cossack and peasant rebellions that reached the city walls of Lviv assured that the nobles of Ukraine were in a state of military preparedness. Frontier conditions and contested land grants guaranteed that military force often resolved disputes. The existence of magnates’ armies far surpassing in numbers the retainers of any grandee of the Plock area and equal to the private armies of the great Lithuanian magnates, provided the means for bloody and prolonged conflicts between nobles. Petty nobles found employment in these private armies. The picture that Lozinski drew of a violent noble society in his extensive study of the western Ukrainian palatinate of Ruthenia can be seen as an indication of what transpired in the less settled lands to the east. Just how pervasive violence was in Ukrainian noble life must be examined, but the task is not an easy one since placid life and peaceful negotiations of disputes tended to go unrecorded, while violence was reflected in protests and litigation.⁶³

While levels of violence are difficult to estimate, use of arms to embark on foreign adventures is easier to quantify. Control of foreign relations by central governments was limited everywhere in early modern Europe, but nowhere more than in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nobles in Ukraine were particularly apt to conduct their own foreign policies, including the waging of war: they had the necessary resources at their disposal; the actions of the Crimean Tatars, Ottomans and Muscovites affected them and their estates directly; and the central government responded too slowly to continual threats of immediate attack. The interventions in Muscovy and Moldavia are good examples of great Ukrainian lords conducting their own policy by armed incursions outside the commonwealth.⁶* The private armies that assembled for these enterprises probably contained a disproportionate number of Ukrainian nobles. In addition, the hetmans of the Polish army often treated independ­ently with the Crimean Tatars and intervened in their affairs. The tradition of Zaporozhian activity in foreign affairs that the nobility found so troublesome in the seventeenth century had been initiated by great nobles who led the Host in the sixteenth century. Hence opportunities were abundant for the nobles of Ukraine to embark on foreign ventures.⁶⁵

The Private and Public Life of the Nobles

The most valuable contributions nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians made to the study of the Ukrainian nobility were their descrip­tions of the life, culture and attitudes among that group. The voluminous records of noble courts offered a treasure of colourful figures and incidents, which provided material for these descriptions that were often as close to belles-lettres as to scholarship. The finest example is Wladystaw Lozinskfs controversial Prawem ³ Iewem_y which describes life among the nobles in the Ruthenian palatinate. The works of Orest Levytsky, Antoni Rolle, Kazimierz and Julian Bartoszewicz and numerous others provide in­formation ranging from the status of women to the practice of martial arts.⁶⁶ A few aspects of noble life in Ukraine are still studied by Soviet Ukrainian scholars, who have provided works on art history, portraiture and regional ethnography.⁶⁷ A systematization of materials must be undertaken so that the nutrition, families, households and vital statistics of the nobles can be examined. Also nineteenth-century studies can serve as a starting point for modern works examining the mentalite of the nobles.

Studies on the nobles of the entire commonwealth have increased our understanding of the Ukrainian nobility as well, but have generally under-emphasized or ignored a number of problems particularly pertinent to Ukraine.⁶⁸ In the sixteenth century the relatively moribund Byzantine-influenced cultural patterns among the nobles unraveled under influences from the West.⁶⁹ Western impact on the customs, patronage, tastes and views of the Ukrainian nobility must be studied further, for to date, aside from some work done in art history, only one small study on the influence of the West on the Ukrainian nobility has been published.⁷⁰ More abundant sources and more Western forms of expression make biographical studies possible. Late sixteenth-century nobles, in stark contrast to the shadowy figures of the pre-1569 Ukrainian elite,⁷¹ expressed their opinions in terms similar to those of their West European contemporaries.

But the increasing influence of the West should not cause us to ignore an almost as powerful Eastern impact on the Ukrainian elite. Life on the eastern frontier was very different from that in the western lands. It was there that Christian and Muslim, agriculturalist and nomad, came up against each other. Scholars have paid insufficient attention to the impact of Islam and nomadic societies on the life, taste and possibly the attitudes of the nobles of Ukraine.⁷² The orientalized magnates of Ukraine influenced the Baroque culture of the commonwealth.

High culture in Ukraine, although expressed frequently in religious terms, was to a considerable extent noble culture. The contributions of the more humble burghers and non-noble clerics were not negligible, however, and the delineation of the nobles’ role in education, publishing, art patronage and literature should be made with care. The rapid spread of formal education and the founding of numerous schools (the brotherhood schools of Lviv and Lutske, the Uniate school of Volodymyr, the Jesuit academies, the Zamosc Academy and the Kievan Collegium) changed Ukraine’s intellectual climate. Yet, although we have a preliminary study on the attendance of Ukrainian nobles in West European schools, we have no similar studies for schools in the commonwealth. The changes in attitude of the nobles of Ukraine toward education and learning, the spread of literacy amongst them and their preferences in language have yet to be examined.⁷³

For all aspects of the culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ukraine, the role of the nobles as producers, patrons and consumers must be analysed. This is essential for an understanding of the divergent tendencies of traditionalism and modernism, religious and secular culture, Byzantine and Latin culture, Ruthenian-Slavonic and Polish culture among the nobles. In any examination of life, culture and attitudes, particular attention must be paid to the tremendous difference among the great magnates, the middle-size holders and the often poverty-stricken petty nobles as well as to the question of common characteristics within this culturally diverse corporate order.

In contrast to the daily life and culture of the nobles of Ukraine, their political institutions have been little studied. The basic institution of noble political life was the dietine of the palatinate or land, which sent delegates to the Diet of the commonwealth. Political relations were also reflected in the allocation of local elective and appointed offices. Except for the Ruthenian palatinate, local politics have not been examined.⁷⁴

The dietines left few official records other than their instructions to the delegates of the Diet. Thus an extensive archival search will be needed to uncover the rare materials describing the functioning of these dietines, the way they reached decisions and the distribution of power within them. The questions to be resolved are numerous. What influence did the magnates wield? What was the role of long-resident families as opposed to newcomers? Is it true, as it appears, that in palatinates such as Volhynia and Kiev, the older families maintained their control despite the influx of new landholders and petty nobles from the west?

The delegates’ instructions, many of which have been published, already enable us to determine the composition of the delegations, including what strata they came from and how often certain individuals or families monopolized the post of delegate.⁷⁵ In conjunction with a study of the office-holding patterns in each palatinate (palatine, castellan, court posi­tions and honorific posts), the patterns of local power and influence might then emerge. A detailed study of the contents of the instructions, particu­larly for the four eastern lands, could shed light on three major issues concerning the nobility in Ukraine: taxation and defence, the struggle over the Union of Brest and relations with Cossacks. The proportion of the taxes of the commonwealth paid by the inhabitants of the Ukrainian lands and the taxation policies of the nobles of Ukraine must be examined.

Until the extant diaries of the Diets of the commonwealth have been collected, edited and published, it will be difficult to study the activities and roles of the delegates from the Ukrainian lands.⁷⁶ At present, the only exhaustive study has been on the noble defenders of the Orthodox church.⁷⁷ An examination of the laws enacted by the Diet that affected the Ukrainian lands can easily be undertaken. These laws are included in the Volumina legum, which again has only been used in a major study for its bearing on the Orthodox church issue.” A particularly fruitful undertaking would be to investigate the special legislation enacted to administer the lands annexed at the Union of Lublin.⁷⁹

An examination of decrees of central government chanceries affecting the nobles of Ukraine should be undertaken in conjunction with the study of their activities in the Diet. The king usually conferred vacant offices of church and state during sessions of the Diet and the grants were registered in the chancery books of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For the king, these conferrals were a means to gain support for his programme, and many a noble’s politics can be explained by the hope of receiving a Starostwo or a bishopric. Studies of office-holding should in­clude an examination of how often the nobles from Ukraine held central posts (chancellors, hetmans, etc.) and their influence on commonwealth policies, as well as the correlation of conferrals of local offices and lands with the recipients’ politics.⁸⁰ While the central registry books of the Kingdom of Poland, the Crown Metrica, have long been accessible to researchers in Warsaw, the special books the central government kept for the eastern Ukrainian lands, the Ruthenian or Volhynian Metrica, have been retained in Moscow, and over the past fifty years have seldom been cited, even by Soviet scholars. Until this source becomes available, study of the political culture of the nobles of Ukraine will be severely hampered.⁸¹

The nobles were extremely litigious, and legal statutes and court records are excellent sources not only for describing the economic and social aspects of their life, but also for documenting their political activities and views. The retention of the Second Lithuanian Statute of 1566 made the legal code of the lands annexed at the Union of Lublin different from that of other territories of the kingdom. Indeed, after the adoption of the Third Lithuanian Statute in the grand duchy in 1588, the Second Statute became a uniquely Ukrainian code that influenced legal and political relations in Ukraine until the beginning of the nineteenth century. While the statute dealt with public law and with other orders of the population, it was primarily a code of the rights and duties of the nobility. Its theory and practice have yet to be examined for their influence on the institutions and political thought of the nobles.⁸²

At the Union of Lublin the nobles of the annexed lands were guaranteed a separate court tribunal at Lutske, but after the 1580s, this tribunal lapsed and all cases for the Ukrainian lands and many for the Polish territories were heard at Lublin.” However, the retention of the Lithuanian Statute of 1566 and the Ruthenian tongue assured that cases from the annexed lands had to be heard separately. Just as Warsaw was the centre for the delegates from the dietines, who gathered with monarch and senators to legislate, Lublin became the centre of litigants and of judges elected by the dietines, who gathered to hear the cases. Here t∞ assembled the nobles from the western Ukrainian territories, who were subject to the law codes in use throughout the kingdom. The destruction of the Lublin Tribunal records by the Nazis during the Second World War remains the greatest single loss to the history of the Ukrainian nobility, and we must make do with the numerous citations from the tribunal records in nineteenth-century heraldry books and a published volume of indices of tribunal records for the Kiev and Bratslav palatinates.⁸⁴

The centre of the public life of a noble was the local court. The court system at the palatine or county level epitomized the blurring of distinctions between the institutions and functions of the king, the state and the noble order. Just as the king’s powers of ultimate appeal were progressively usurped by a system of elected judges in the Lublin Tribunal, so the authority of the king’s local judges was diminished by the increasing rights of the local nobilities. The royal-appointed palatines, castellans and starostas kept certain rights of adjudication over non-nobles, but the local courts that affected the nobility were converted into courts of the noble order for which local elections became more and more important in the appointment procedure. As the distinctions of the courts of the land and the courts of the castle disappeared, the records of the courts were conver­ted into registry archives for the local nobility. It is from the thousands of volumes of these court records, preserved almost intact for the western Ukrainian lands and in large numbers for the eastern Ukrainian territories, that most of the nineteenth-century source publications drew their materials.⁸⁵ In recent decades Soviet scholars have only occasionally cited these sources, which are essential for an understanding of Ukrainian history in the early modern period.⁸⁶

The study of the nobility’s legislatures, administration and courts provides only the structure of political life, not the contents of the political process. What were the mechanisms of power relations and practical politics among Ukraine’s nobles? Careful distinctions must be drawn be­tween our perceptions of how the system worked and those of its participants. The essential problem, which has been dealt with frequently in this essay, is whether emphasis should be placed on the theories and institutions that marked the commonwealth as the joint property of the entire nobility or on the de facto power of an amorphous group of magnates. Polish historians have described the pre-1648 Kingdom of Poland and commonwealth as a state governed by nobles or a “gentry democracy,” and the post-1648 system as the “oligarchy of the magnates.”⁸⁷ They would, of course, be the first to admit that even the cataclysmic year of 1648 should not be seen as a definite divide and that they are in fact describing a continuum of political change in a society that did not recognize that it had altered its form of government. Many students of the Polish nobility and state see the tremendous de facto inequality in the eastern lands and the existence of a small circle of ex­tremely wealthy aristocrats originating in a society far different from that of ethnic Poland as a major factor in the change of the political and social structure over the entire commonwealth. The student of the Ukrainian nobility must examine to what degree the Ukrainian lands were dominated politically and economically by a group of magnates between 1569 and 1648. In such a study, attention must be paid to whether nobles in Ukraine perceived the political structure of their lands as different from that of the Polish territories.

Any study of the nobles of Ukraine must deal not only with institutions and political practices, but also with political theories and consciousness. Since the publication of Lypynsky’s works before the First World War, no major studies of the political culture of the Ukrainian nobility have appeared. As the nobility was the “political nation” of the commonwealth, the presence or absence of a specific Ukrainian-Ruthenian political culture and of a perception of belonging to a historical-cultural community among some segments of the nobles is the most significant indication of the distinctiveness of the Ukrainian nobility. I have shown elsewhere that to a limited degree a Ukrainian political culture and national consciousness existed, and I propose merely to summarize my findings here as they relate to the nobility.”

Although adherence to the political values and loyalties of all the nobles of the commonwealth, in general, and of the Kingdom of Poland, in particular, prevailed among the nobles of Ukraine, a countervailing, though not always antagonistic, Ukrainian-Ruthenian noble political culture was also discernible between 1569 and 1648. In 1569 the nobles of Ukraine seemed unlikely to resist full assimilation into the nobility of the Kingdom of Poland. Even the indigenous Ruthenian nobles in the sixteenth century had little awareness of their history or of the former polities of Kievan Rus’ and the Galician-Volhynian principality; therefore they did not act as bearers of a separate political tradition, and this enabled the Polish political tradition and Sarmatism to make rapid progress among them. Nevertheless, the existence of the Orthodox church, an institution r∞ted in the Rus’ past and in Ruthenian-Slavonic culture, did provide a separate Ruthenian (Ukrainian-Belorussian) tradition, and the very weakness of this institution and Ruthenian culture before an advancing Polish Roman Catholic society elicited the reaction through which a new Ukrainian political culture was born. Orthodox polemicists renewed interest in Kievan Rus’; Ruthenian writers dedicated books to Ruthenian nobles which in­cluded genealogies that traced their ancestry back to eleventh-century figures from the chronicles. Kiev was extolled as a holy city, a second Jerusalem and the former capital of a once great Ruthenian state. As the ancient seat of the princes rose from ruins, Orthodox churchmen assiduously ordered frescos to be made depicting the princes of Kiev together with their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century descendants. Thus Ruthenian consciousness was intensified among segments of the nobility at the very time that many nobles were losing the religious and cultural affiliations that made them part of the Rus’ community.

While religious patriotic historical sentiment could only take hold among Ruthenian nobles of Orthodox faith, all nobles in the lands annexed at the Union of Lublin were open to expressions of regional particularism. Common laws and customs led the nobles of the palatinates of Volhynia, Kiev, Bratslav and Chernihiv to call their lands the “four Ruthenian palatinates” and to act as a bloc at the Diet. Attacks on regional traditions, such as the use of princely titles, were resisted. This regional solidarity extended to all noble inhabitants of these lands, whatever their faith or origin. But while the Roman Catholics and Poles were seen as full members of the regional noble bloc, the lands and nobilities were still perceived as organically linked to the Ruthenian historical tradition, culture and people.

The mix of Ruthenian consciousness and regionalism made the nobles of the lands annexed at the Union of Lublin the political nation of a Rus’ patria. Some of these nobles became defenders of the Orthodox church, and usually based their defence on the Union of Lublin, which they regarded as a kind of constitution and a free union between the nobles of Rus’ and the nobles of Poland. The fact that this was a distortion of the past did not diminish its potency: there are even indications that, combined with political regionalism and historical cultural patriotism, the constitutional theory of the Union of Lublin produced a Ruthenian Sarmatism. In sum, economic and cultural vitality in Ukraine appears to have been accompanied by a new Ukrainian political culture among cer­tain segments of the nobility.

The intellectual and political significance of these tendencies can only be determined by a thorough examination of seventeenth-century books and manuscripts. Political tracts and opinions are often preserved in silvae rerum, or copy books of nobles, which are particularly difficult to locate, but the impressive work of Lypynsky in the archives of Cracow indicates that the material exists, although regrettably access to the most important archives, those of Kiev and Lviv, is difficult. But however numerous ex­pressions of these tendencies prove to be, it should always be remembered that they were less important than the trends that were integrating the nobles of Ukraine into the commonwealth, the Kingdom of Poland, and the belief in the brotherhood of the Sarmatian nobility. The latter trends were all-pervasive and influenced even the exponents of Ukrainian political culture—who were in any case a minority expressing a rather weakly developed regionalism and Ruthenian consciousness. They were enthusiastically adopted by many nobles along with the Polish language, Roman Catholicism and Polish identity. The expressions of regionalist sentiment and Ruthenian patriotism among the nobility should never be confused with modern national consciousness or nationalism. They should, nonetheless, be seen as an important link in the development of Ukrainian historical consciousness and political thought, particularly through the influence they had over the Cossack Hetmanate.⁸⁹

Conclusions

In the tenth century the rulers and elite groups of Kievan Rus’ were attracted to the Byzantine world and brought the Rus’ polity, society and culture into its orbit. Subsequent generations of Ukrainian historians have, with the benefit of hindsight, debated the wisdom of their decision. Some have pointed to the rapid cultural and political achievements of Kievan Rus’, while others have lamented that the young polity was cut off from the Latin West, the civilization to which the future belonged. The Ukrainian elites of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries were far less independent as historical actors. Still, it is clear that from the boyars of fourteenth-century Halych to the middle nobles at the Union of Lublin, Ukrainian elite groups were strongly attracted to the Kingdom of Poland. The core of that attraction was the wish to gain the privileges of the Polish szlachta. Modern historians have also differed on the consequences of these actions for the evolution of the Ukrainian people and culture. Some have emphasized the benefits of the Westernization of society and culture, while others have decried the alienation of the elite and the importation of social, political and cultural models that were to prove sterile and ineffective in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Leaving such broad evaluative questions aside, we should instead exam­ine the role of the nobles in bringing on 1648. The nobles of Ukraine were one of the few seventeenth-century elites to witness a lasting change in the political and social order. Weaknesses and fissures within the noble order and the failure of the nobles to control and lead the inhabitants of the Ukrainian lands constituted the central problem? of the breakdown of the commonwealth’s administration in Ukraine. On the other hand, inherent strengths and cohesiveness within the nobility stirred most nobles to a tenacious, and partially successful, struggle to restore the old order. Only through careful study of the nobility can we understand the causes and development of a major turning-point in Ukrainian history, the revolt of 1648 and the formation of the Cossack Hetmanate.

In dealing with the role of the nobility in the breakdown of the commonwealth’s rule in Ukraine, we must address the questions that Smotrytsky posed, albeit in a different manner. Once we have established a composite picture of the nobles of the Ukrainian lands between 1569 and 1648, we can turn to an examination of the processes and consequences of the integration of the Ruthenian-Ukrainian elite into the commonwealth’s “Polish” nobility. In 1610 Smotrytsky could hardly have foreseen 1643; but he did draw attention to a process that was estranging many Ukrainian nobles from the other orders of the Ukrainian population. In order to un­derstand the process that Smotrytsky lamented, we must examine anew the transformation of the Ukrainian nobility from the Union of Lublin to the Khmelnytsky uprising.

Notes

1. The translation is from a Ukrainian translation of excerpts from Smotrytsky’s work in O. I. Biletsky₁ ed.₁ Khrestomatiia davnoi Ukrainskoi Uteratury (do kintsia XVIII st.), 3d ed. (Kiev, 1967), 167-8.

2. Metropolitan Isaia Kopynsky’s letter is published by Viacheslav Lypynsky as document 8 of “Echa przeszlosci,” in Waclaw Lipinski, ed., Z dziejbw Ukrainy. Ksigga pamiptkowa ku czci Wiodzimierza Antonowicza, Paulina Swigcickiego ³ Tadeusza Rylskiego (Kiev [Cracow], 1912), 131-3.

3. Of nineteenth-century Ukrainian historians, only Mykhailo Maksymovych stressed the positive aspects of the nobility’s role in Ukrainian history. Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Hrushevsky belonged to the narodnytska shkola (populist school) that sympathized with the masses’ strivings for freedom and condemned ruling classes and states. In Antonovych’s case, political and national views combined to prompt his “betrayal” of his Polish Roman Catholic noble peers and his espousal of the positions of the peasantry, the Ukrainian national movement and Orthodoxy.

Political and intellectual changes in the Ukrainian national movement were reflected among Ukrainian historians in the early twentieth century. The shift from work to improve the cultural, social and economic position of the Ukrainian masses to political and military activity to form a Ukrainian state was accompanied by the formation of a new historical movement, the derzhavnytska shkola (statist school). Emerging with the publication of Viacheslav Lypynsky’s Z dziejbw Ukrainy in 1912, the statist school dominated Ukrainian historical work in Western Ukraine between the wars and even influenced Soviet Ukrainian historians during the relatively liberal 1920s. Renouncing the values of the populists, Viacheslav Lypynsky, Stepan Tomashivsky, Ivan Krypiakevych, Myron Korduba, Dmytro Doroshenko and many others argued that elites and states had frequently acted in the “interests” of the Ukrainian nation. Yet although Lypynsky’s Z dziej∂w Ukrainy was devoted to the Ukrainian nobility, most of the “statist” historians focused their attention on the Cossack Hetmanate’s administration and foreign policy. For discussions of Ukrainian historiography, see Dmytro Doroshenko, “A Survey of Ukrainian Historiography,” and Oleksander Ohloblyn, “Ukrainian Historiography, 1917-1956,” in Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States 5-6, nos. 4 (18) - 1-2 (19-20) (1957); B. Krupnytsky, Istorioznavchi problemy istorii Ukrainy (Zbirnyk stattei) (Munich, 1959); and M. I. Marchenko, Ukrainska istoriohrafιia (Z davnikh chasiv do seredyny XIX st.) (Kiev, 1959).

Contemporary political and national considerations explain the general neglect and the sporadic interest of Ukrainian historians in the nobility. Lypynsky’s fundamental work, Z dziejbw Ukrainy, begins with a preface calling on the Polish-language work’s readers to return to their proper place as leaders of the Ukrainian nation (v-xi). Russian and Polish historians have been just as strongly interested in contemporary political considerations. Only the social and political revolutions after the Second World War finally removed the nobility as an active political factor in the Ukrainian lands and ended the need to use history to win the support of the noble social groupings. Two examples from the 1860s and the 1930s will suffice to demonstrate how often political considerations have inspired historians’ studies.

In the 1850s and 1860s Russian publicists, some of whom were “Little Russians,” challenged the view that Right-Bank Ukraine was Polish territory. Governmental support was given to a Kievan archeographic commission to publish documents that would undermine Polish claims. A volume of instructions of dietines to delegates to Polish-Lithuanian Diets appeared in 1861 with anti-Polish introductions by M. Iuzefovich and N. Ivanishev. Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii izdavaemyi Vremennoiu kommissieiu dlia razbora drevnikh aktov, 35 volumes, 8 parts (Kiev, 1859-1914), 1, part 2 (hereafter Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii). Iuzefovich emphasized the political goals of the publication by stating: “For some time, articles have appeared in foreign Polish journals that have the clear aim of convincing public opinion in Europe that the West Russian land along the Dnieper is a Polish land and that the name Rusin does not denote a Russian person, but that it is a provincial name for a Pole, like Masovian, Cracovian or Great Polanian. This theory, as is well-known, was first devised in Galicia, from where it was transferred here, as support for unbridled Polish patriotism, which feels, here as there, the weakness of the ground for the realization of its claims.” (v) With a dangerously egalitarian tone for tsarist Russia, Iuzefovich went on: “Is it possible in our nineteenth century that one can still seriously think not only to assert, but no less to strive to realize, the thought that dominance among the nobility gives the right to rule?” (xiii) Disclaimers to the contrary, Russian authorities and patriots were deeply troubled by the predominance of Polish patriots among the Right-Bank nobles and sought to undermine it. Hence, N. Ivanishev stressed the non-Polish composition of the area’s nobility in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the elements of Rus’ patriotism and devotion to the Rus’ language in the instructions. Within a few years, Iuzefovich prefaced a volume of documents entitled “Acts about the Origins of Noble Families in South-West Russia” with a chart documenting when families had abandoned Orthodoxy. He asserted that only one-tenth of the area's nobles were of Polish descent and that he had established the “Rus’ ” origins of over seven hundred families. Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii, (Kiev, 1867), 1, part 4: i-xiii.

The commission’s activities raised such a furor among the nobles of the region that it was forced to justify its choice of materials for publication. Otvet Kievskoi Kommissii dlia razbora drevnikh aktov na Obvineniia nekotorykh gazet ³ zhurnalov po povodu vykhoda v svet II-i chasti "Arkhiva Iugozapadnoi Rossiiⁿ (Kiev, 1861). Already by the 1860s, however, the government began to see some unexpected negative results from its campaign. Historians such as Volodymyr Antonovych were pleased to accept government subsidies and even the government’s assertion that the lands were not originally Polish. Yet Antonovych and his colleagues rejected the contention that Rusin denoted a Russian person, and saw the documents as proof of Ruthenian-Ukrainian national distinctiveness.

As late as the 1930s, studies of the nobility could still be undertaken largely in response to government campaigns and subsidies. On this occasion a Polish government tried to convince Ukrainian-speaking, Greek Catholic petty nobles in Eastern Galicia that their ancestors had been Poles. Subsidies were made available to form associations of these nobles, “threatened by Ukrainianization," to put out popular literature and to publish scholarly works. Needless to say, the parallel with the Russian policies of the 1860s seemed to go unnoticed even by reputable scholars. As in the 1860s, valuable documents and studies were published, along with tendentious tracts.

For an account of the campaign, see Wladyslaw Pobog-Malinowski, Najnowsza historia polityczna Polski, 2d ed., (London, 1967), 2: 823-5. As an example of a work that combines useful research with political agitation, see Wladyslaw Pulnarowicz, Rycerstwo polskie Podkarpacia. Dawne dzieje ³ obecne obowigzki Szlachty zagrodowej na Podkarpaciu, 2d printing (Przemysl, 1937). These provincial popular publications rarely reached North American or West European libraries, but are essential for study of the western Ukrainian petty nobility. Many are noted in the bibliography to Maria Biernacka’s Wsie drobnoszlacheckie na Mazowszu ³ Podlasiu. Tradycje historyczne a wsp∂lczesne przemiany (WrociawWarsaw-Cracow, 1966).

4. The lack of a Ukrainian historical bibliography hampers all work on Ukrainian history and is only partially compensated by the standard Polish and Russian historical bibliographies. No greater failing can be attributed to Soviet Ukrainian historiography, particularly since Soviet Belorussian historians put out a historical bibliography a decade ago: Bibliiahrafiia pa historyi Belarusi. Feadalizm ³ kapitalizm, ed. M. Krekane and A. Sakolchyk (Minsk, 1969). Incomplete as this work is, it can be used with profit by historians of Belorussia and Ukraine. The historiographic essays by Doroshenko and Ohloblyn (see note 3) are almost all that exists for Ukrainian history. Compiling bibliographies on the Ukrainian nobility is the necessary first step toward advancing study of the topic. The task is particu­larly difficult because numerous sketches and documents appeared in nineteenth-century newspapers and popular journals. Often the materials that they are based on have been destroyed, thereby rendering them the only source of information on persons, families and genealogies. In this essay, only the most important relevant works will be cited under specific topics. For published sources on the period, most of which deal with the nobility, see the studies by N. P. Kovalsky, Istochnikovedenie istorii Ukrainy (XVI-pervaia polovina XVII veka), part 1: Analiz sovetskikh Orkheograficheskikh publikatsii dokumentalnykh istochnikov. Uchebnoe posobie (Dnipropetrovske, 1977); Istochnikovedenie ³ arkheografiia istorii Ukrainy XVI-pervoi poloviny XVII v., part 2: Analiz dorevoliutsionnykh Otechestvennykh publikatsii istochnikov. Uchebnoe posobie po spetskursu (Dnipropetrovske, 1978); Istochnikovedenie istorii Ukrainy XVI-pervoi poloviny XVII veka, part 3: Kharakteristika publikatsii istochnikov na inostrannykh iazykakh. Uchebnoe posobie (Dnipropetrovske, 1978). Because his rather bizarre system of classification precludes treating Ukrainian publications issued outside of the ^uFatherlandⁿ (i.e., the Russian empire or the Soviet Union), Kovalsky refers the reader to his article ^uIstochniki po istorii Ukrainy XVI-pervoi poloviny XVII v. vo Ivovskikh arkheografιcheskikh izdaniiakh XIX-nachala XX v.,” in Analiz publikatsii istochnikov po Otechestvennoi istorii (Dnipropetrovske, 1978), 20-48. He fails to mention the largest publication of sources in recent decades, Section 3 of Series 2 of Analecta 0SBM. Since 1953, the Basilian Fathers in Rome have published eleven volumes of documents exclusively on the period from 1569 to 1648, and seven containing some documents. He also omits the pertinent volumes (1, 2, 9-10) of the St. Clement Catholic University’s Monumenta Ucrainae Historica, 10 vols. (Rome, 1964-71). On published sources, also see I. P. Krypiakevych, Dzherela z istorii Halychyny periodu feodalizmu (do 1772 r.). Ohliad publikatsii (Kiev, 1962).

The problem of secondary works is more difficult to resolve. Extensive bibliographical notes, including some on the nobles of the Ukrainian lands, are found in Hans R∞s, ^uStandewesen und parlamentarische Verfassung in Polen (1505-1772),ⁿ in Dietrich Gerhard, ed., Stdndische Vertretungen in Europa in 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Gδttingen, 1967) (VerSffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts fur Geschichte 27 and Studies Presented to the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions 37), 310-68. For coats of arms and genealogies, in addition to the standard Polish heraldic works, consult Kazimierz Pulaski, Kronika polskich rod∂w Szlacheckich Podola, Woiynia ³ Ukrainy (Brody, 1911); Jδzef Wolff, Kniaziowie litewsko-ruscy od kohca Czternastego wieku (Warsaw, 1895); Adam Boniecki₁ Poczet rodδw w Wielkiem Ksiestwie Litewskim w XVI ³ XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1887); and

S. Golubev, ^uOpisanie ³ istolkovanie dvorianskikh gerbov iuzhnorusskikh familii V proizvedeniiakh dukhovnykh pisatelei XVII veka,ⁿ Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, no. 10 (1872): 259-382.

The problem of family histories is especially difficult, since these volumes were often issued in small editions. They are often particularly valuable because of their inclusion of extracts and summaries of documents. While some family histories are frequently mentioned in the scholarly literature and available in major libraries (e.g., Z. L. Radzimihski, ed., Monografiia XX. Sanguszkbw oraz innych potomk∂w Lubarta-Fedora Olgerdowicza X. Ratnehskiego, 3 vols. (Lviv, 1906-11]), many are rarely cited and only a few copies are in existence. Two noble families from Western Ukraine issued their family histories in 200 copies with warnings that they were “published in 200 numbered copies as a manuscript” and “issued in 200 copies as a publication of the family for its own use.” The second part of Jan Hr. Drohojowski, Kronika Drohojowskich na podstawie badaħ archiwalnych, 2 parts (Cracow, 1904) contains summaries of 1,139 documents, while Maurycy Dzieduszycki, Kronika domowa Dzieduszyckich (Lviv, 1865) contains a valuable addendum of documents. The existence of these “private” publications makes the need for thorough bibliographic work on the nobility even more urgent. Numerous family histories appeared in the Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie, 11 vols. (1908-9—1931-2), and the Miesiξcznik Heraldyczny, 18 vols. (1908-39), both of which were founded in Lviv.

Although there is no adequate work on the nobility of Ukraine between 1569 and 1648, a number of fundamental studies provide substantial infor­mation. The works of Aleksander Jablonowski describe the nobility by regions at the end of the sixteenth century (the early seventeenth century for the Kiev and Bratslav palatinates). He wrote his studies as introductory essays to the sources on demography that he published in Zrddia dziejowe, published by the Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie, Wydzial II: Nauk antropologicznych, spolecznych, historyi ³ Iilozofii, Komisya historyczna, 24 vols. (Warsaw, 1876-1915), 5-6, 17-22. These were reprinted in his collected works: Pisma, 7 vols. (Warsaw, 1910-13).

The most comprehensive discussion of the position of the nobility in Ukrainian history in this period is found in Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy, reprint, 10 vols. (New York, 1954-8). The essays and documents in Z dziej∂w Ukrainy are the most useful sources on the Ruthenian nobility’s political activities and thought. The major Soviet history of the period by Oleksander Baranovych (Aleksandr Baranovich) contains useful observations and statistics: Ukraina nakanune Osvoboditelnoi voiny serediny XVH v. (Sotsialnoekonomicheskie predposylki voiny) (Moscow, 1959).

5. Viacheslav Lypynsky [Waclaw Lipinski], Szldchta na Ukrainie, 1: Udziai jej w zyciu narodu Ukraihskiego na tie jego dziejδw (Cracow, 1909) contains interesting observations on the nobility’s role in Ukrainian history, but the short work (eighty-eight pages) was intended as a political statement to the Polish-speaking nobles of Right-Bank Ukraine. Z. L. Radziminski and W. Rulikowski, Kniaziowie ³ szlachta miξdzy Sanem, Wieprzem, Bugiem, Prypecig, Siniuchg, Dniestrem ³ p∂inocnymi Stokami Karpat osiedleni. Opowiadania historycne, heraldyczno- genealogiczne ³ obyczajowe... Cracow, 1880), 1, parts 1 and 2, is the most comprehensive study of nobles in the Ukrainian lands from the period of Kievan Rus’ to the eighteenth century. Written by Polish nobles who loved their native Ukraine, the b∞k is a mixture of well-informed commentary based on a wide reading of the sources and of propagation of political and cultural theories (e.g., the confrontation of Germano-Christian and Greco-Christian ideas, the importance of Viking blood in the formation of East European elites, Gobineau’s race theories). The authors revealed their internal struggles in their tortuous demonstrations that the assimilation of Ruthenian nobles to Polish identity was a natural and desirable process and in their ambiguous attitude toward the Cossacks. The b∞k contains 816 pages, but the second half (431-816), which deals with the period after Kievan Rus’, was destroyed by the authors. This section is extant in only four copies. Maryan Gorzkowski, O rusifιskiej ³ rosyjskiej Szlachcie (Cracow, 1876) is a popular work, chiefly of interest to students of Polish attitudes toward Ukrainians and Russians. For works on specific periods, see note 12 for the Lithuanian period and Kohut’s essay in this volume for the Hetmanate.

6. Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, “Les noblesses I. Reconnaissance generale du terrain," Annales d’Histoire economique et sociale 8 (no. 39) (May 1936): 239.

7. For recent comparative studies on European nobilities, see Jean Meyer, Noblesses et pouvoirs dans ΓEurope d’Ancien Regime ([Paris], 1973) Jean-Pierre Labatut, Les noblesses europeenes de la fin du XVe siicle it la fin du XVIIIe siicle (Paris, 1978), Franς: Billacois, “La crise de la noblesse europeenne (1550-1650),” Revue d’Histoire moderne et Contemporaine 23 (April-June 1976): 258-77, W. H. Zaniewicki, La noblesse “populaire" en Espagne et en Pologne (Lyon, 1967) and the review article by Carlo Capra, “La nobilita europea prima della rivoluzione,” Studi storici, no. 1 (1977): 118-38. Problems of definition and terminology are encountered in the volume of essays edited by A. Goodwin, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Studies of the Nobilities of the Major European States in the Pre-Reform Era (London, 1953). In his essay “England,” H. J. Habakkuk maintains (page 1): “In the continental countries nobility was usually a status. The rights attaching to it varied from country to country, but it was reasonably clear in any particular country what the rights of a noble were and who was entitled to enjoy them. The outlines of class were clear and distinct.... In England there was no nobility in this strict sense.” He proceeds to combine the English gentrymen and nobles in order to compare the English “nobility” with its European counterparts. C. A. Macartney on “Hungary” and A. Bruce Boswell on “Poland” deal with similar problems and come to opposed terminological decisions. Macartney uses “magnate” and “gentry” to describe layers of the Hungarian “nobility” while Boswell asserts: “The absence of a peerage, together with the number of its class, make it appropriate to translate Szlachta as gentry rather than nobility, which for non-Polish readers has the implication of a small peerage or an oligarchy grouped around a strong monarchy” (160). Although Boswell’s assertion is fundamentally correct, his terminological decision is out of keeping with the title of the volume and with the essays of J. McManners, “France”; Raymond Carr, “Spain”;

H. G. Schenck, “Austria”; and C. A. Macartney “Hungary.” Describing, for example, Prince Konstantyn Ostrozky, the owner of scores of cities and hundreds of villages, as a member of the “gentry” would also be disconcerting to the English reader. The problem is a difficult one. I have chosen “nobility” to translate ^uSzlachtashliakhtaⁿ on the grounds that it coincides with general usage for the continental elite groups discussed.

The existence of a distinct European society of corporate orders is argued by Dietrich Gerhard in “Regionalism and Corporate Order as a Basic Theme of European History,” in Studies in Diplomatic History: Essays in Memory of David Bayne Horn, ed. Ragnhild Hatton and M. S. Anderson (London, 1970), 155-82. (For the original text and com­plete footnotes, see "Regionalismus und Standisches Wesen als ein Grundthema Europaischer Geschichte,” Historische Zeitschrift 174 [1952]: 307-37.) He argues that Western institutions and Western society had become “crystallized” in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and that by the thirteenth century, under the influence of law and philosophy, the legal forms basic to the structure of social orders and estates had been defined. He sees a merging of Roman, Germanic and Slavonic traditions that cre­ated a pan-European social system, albeit one that differed greatly from region to region (see 161-3). Gerhard’s view of the distinctiveness of European societies and political institutions is by no means original, but the comparative framework and the discussion of regionalism make this essay essential for studies on the Ukrainian nobility. Gerhard sees the common features of the European social order as encompassing Eastern Europe, but not Russia, in the early modern period. Although he questions Oscar Halecki’s definition of Western civilization, he accepts the geographical boundaries Halecki proposes. Oscar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History (London, 1950). Halecki devotes considerable attention to the Ukrainian lands, which he sees as a borderland drawn into the sphere of Western civilization in the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. He, like Gerhard, sees Muscovy as outside this European society. (See note 8 for discussions of the Russian social structure.) Gerhard’s discussion of the relationship of regionalism to corporate social orders contributes to the analysis of the Ukrainian nobiity’s regional particularism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

8. The great differences between the Russian nobility and the other European nobilities are noted in all works on Russian elites. Because of the adaptation of West European models and the changes in the nobles’ positions through­out Europe in modern times, these differences diminished. For discussions of the imperial Russian nobility, see Max Beloff, “Russia,” in A. Goodwin, The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, 172-89; Robert E. Jones, The Emancipation of the Russian Nobility, 1762-1785 (Princeton, 1973); Marc Raeff, Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth Century Nobility (New York, 1966) and Aleksandr Romanovich-Slavatinsky, Dvorianstvo v Rossii ot nachala XVII veka do otmeny krepostnogo prava, 2d ed. (Kiev, 1912). Beloff begins his article (173) with a discussion of the Charter of Nobility of 1785, “for it serves as a reminder of how different was the position enjoyed by the Russian nobility from that which characterized the aristocracies of other European countries with their emphasis on blood and landed-property rather than on service to the state.”

For the period of this essay, the nature of Muscovite-Russian elite groups has been less studied and is more controversial. Recent research by Western scholars has emphasized the existence of distinct social groupings and certain similarities between the Muscovite elite and European nobilities. See Gunther Stδkl, “Gab es in Moskauer Staat ^tStSnde*?,” Jahrbiicher βir Osteuropaische Geschichte, new series 11 (1963): 321-42; Shigeto Toriyana, “On Muscovite Autocracy—A Comparative View,” Forschungen zur Osteuropaischen Geschichte 18 (1973): 109-23; John Keep, “The Muscovite Elite and the Approach to Pluralism,” Slavonic and East European Review 48 (1979): 201-31; A. M. Kleimola, “Up through Servitude: The Changing Condition of the Muscovite Elite in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Russian History 6, part 2 (1979): 210-29; Robert O. Crummey, “The Reconstitution of the Boiar Aristocracy 1613-1645,” Forschungen zur Osteuropaischen Geschichte 18 (1973): 187-220; and Harmut Ruess, Adel und Adeloppositionen im Moskauer Staat (Wiesbaden, 1975) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Ostlichen Europa 7). This new research may finally allow the kind of comparative study that Bloch and Febvre called for and may show that some of the sharp dichotomies traditionally perceived between Muscovy and the West must be modified. Yet scholars are in agreement that there were substantial differences between the Muscovite elite and the European nobilities. These differences are of great importance for studying Ukraine, which so often constituted a transitional border zone.

9. Predictably, scholars from the eastern regions of Europe have been most interested in defining “European” and “European civilization” and in establishing criteria for regional (western, eastern, east central, etc.) designations. The first chapter of Josef Macδrek, Dejepisectvi evropskeho vychodu (Prague, 1946), contains a discussion of various scholars’ views. In addition to Haleckfs Limits and Divisions, J. Perenyi’s “L’Est Europeen dans une synthese d’histoire universelle,” Nouvelles etudes historiques publiees a !’occasion du XIIe Congris international des sciences historiques par la Commission nationale des historiens hongrois 2 (Budapest, 1965), 379-405, should be consulted. On contacts within Europe in the Middle Ages, see K. Bδsl et al., Eastern and Western Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. G. Barraclough (London, 1970).

10. See Otto Hintze’s essays, ^uStaatenbildung und Kommunalverwaltungⁿ and ^uWeltgeschichtliche Bedingungen der Reprasentatiwerfassung," Gesammelte Abhandlungen, ed. Fritz Hartung, 3 vols. (Leipzig, [1941-3]), 1: Staat und Verfassung, 206-31, 130-75 (especially 160-1).

11. For general studies on the Polish nobility, see Jarema Maciszewski, Szlachta polska ³ jej pahstwo (Warsaw, 1969); Henryk Wisner, Najjasniejsza Rzeczpospolita. Szkice z dziej∂w Polski Szlacheckiej XVI-XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1978); Hans Roos, ^uStandewesen und Parlamentarische Verfassung” and “Der Adel der Polnischen Republik im Vorrevolutionaren Europa,” in Rudolf Vierhaus, ed., Der Adel vor der Revolution. Zur Sozialen und politischen Funktion des Adels in Vorrevolutionaren Europa (Gδttingen, 1971), 41-76; Janusz Tazbir, Kultura Szlachecka w Polsce. Rozkwit-upadek-relikty (Warsaw, 1978), and the essays on the Polish nobility in the special issue “Etudes sur la noblesse,” of Acta Poloniae Historica 36 (1977). The best general histories discussing social groups are Andrzej Wyczanski, Polska—Rzecza Pospolita Szlachecka (Warsaw, 1965) and Jozef Andrzej Gierowski, Historia Polski 1505-1764 (Warsaw, 1979) (with excellent bibliographical notes). The role of the nobility in Polish social relations is examined in an excellent, modern synthesis by Antoni Maczak in Ireneusz Ihnatowicz, Antoni Maczak and Benedykt Zientara, Spoieczehstwo polskie od X do XX wieku (Warsaw, 1979), 227-455. On the nobility’s political rights and ideology, see Stanislaw Grodziski, Obywatelstwo w Szlacheckiej Rzeczypospolitej (Cracow, 1963) and Andrzej Zajaczkowski, Giowne elementy kultury Szlacheckiej w Polsce. Ideologia a Struktury spoleczne (Wroclaw, 1961). See the critical reviews of the latter work by Juliusz Bardach, “O ujeciu Socjologicznym Struktury Spolecznej ³ ideologii szlachty polskiej (w zwiazku z pracami Andrzeja Zajaczkowskiego),” Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 15 (1963): 159-78, and Jarema Maciszewski, “W sprawie kultury Szlacheckiej,” Przeglpd Historyczny 54 (1962): 539-46. A recent useful ad­dition to the voluminous literature on Polish Sarmatism is the special volume of the Warsaw journal Teksty 1974, no. 4 (especially Janusz Maciejowski, ^uSarmatyzm jako formaeja kulturowa. Geneza ³ glδwne cechy Wyodrebniajace,” 13-42). On political institutions and political culture, see the articles by Wladyslaw Czaplinski, Jozef Andrzej Gierowski, Jozef Leszczyhski and Jerzy Wlodarczyk in Jozef Andrzej Gierowski, ed., Dzieje kultury polityeznej w Polsce (Warsaw, 1977). Invaluable for discussions of all aspects of the period are the collections of essays Polska w åðîñå Odrodzenia. Pahstwo, spoleczehstwo, kultura, ed. Andrzej Wyczanski (Warsaw, 1970) and Polska XVH wieku: Pahstwo, spoleczehstwo, kultura, ed. Janusz Tazbir (Warsaw, 1969). These volumes and their bibliographies should be consulted for the specific topics (social groupings, economic developments, military and foreign affairs, etc.) discussed later in this article. Another indispensable work is the handbook with bibliographies by Zdzislaw Kaczmarczyk and Boguslaw Lesnodorski that constitutes volume 2 (Od poiowy XV wieku do roku 1795) of Juliusz Bardach, ed., Historia pahstwa ³ prawa Polski, 4th ed. (Warsaw, 1972).

12. The elite orders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have been quite extensively studied. This literature is best approached through Bibliiahrafiia pa historyi Belarusi, 103-5; Leo Okinshevych, The Law of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Background and Bibliography, Research Program of the USSR, Mimeo Series 32 (New York, 1953); Juliusz Bardach and Jerzy Ochmanski with the co-operation of Oswald Backus, Lituanie (Brussels, 1969) (Introduction bibliographique a Thistoire du droit et a Tethnologie juridique D 14); and Oswald Backus, Motives of West Russian Nobles in Deserting Lithuania for Moscow, 1377-1514 (Lawrence, Kansas, 1957). Also see Backus’ ^uDie Rechtsstellung der Iitauischen Bojaren,” JahrbHcher fHr Geschichte Osteuropas 6 (1958): 1-32, and “The Problem of Feudalism in Lithuania, 1506-1546,” Slavic Review 21 (1962): 639-59. For a discussion of social groupings in the Ukrainian lands, see D. I. Myshko, Sotsialno-ekonomichni umovy Jormuvannia ukrainskoi narodnosti (Stanovyshche selian ³ antyfeodalni rukhy ïà Ukraini v XV-pershii polovyni XVI st.) (Kiev, 1963).

13. The question of “Russia, Ukraine and Europe” has been fraught with passionate controversies. “Russia and Europe” has troubled generations of Russian historians. At its base has been a perception of substantive differences between Russian society, culture and institutions, and their counterparts to the west. The passion this issue has aroused can largely be explained by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russians’ perception of some sort of inferiority of their own traditions. The reactions have ranged from the self-castigation of ardent Westernizers to bravado manifestos about Russian uniqueness by Slavophiles and Soviet Russian patriots. This well-known problem of Russian intellectual history has a little-studied Ukrainian dimension. Those who have asserted Ukrainian distinctiveness have often dwelt on Ukrainian ties to “Europe” and indeed there has been no “Ukraine and Europe” dichotomy in modern Ukrainian intellectual history. Both Ukrainian political thought and historical writing have been suffused with an admiration for all “European” characteristics in the national past that has negated any need to study and evaluate the actual influence of the West on Ukrainians. For a discussion of the “Europeanness” of Ukrainians, see B. Krupnytsky, ^uIstorychni osnovy evropeizmu Ukrainy,” Literaturno-naukovyi visnyk (Regensburg) 32, no. 1 (May 1948); 120-30. Many Russian scholars and publicists have been irritated by the Ukrainians’ insistence on their “Europeanness” and have seen German and Polish influences as responsible for bringing impurities to the “South Russians.” In addition they have emphasized the “regressive” or “reactionary” nature of the Ukrainians’ Western ties (the Polish type of nobility, the union with Rome, the culture of the Counter Reformation). This essential problem in East European history penetrates much of the writing on Ukrainian history of the period from 1569 to 1648. Current Soviet scholarship is particularly adamant about the baneful influences of the West on Ukrainians. For a Soviet attack on scholars who study the problem, see M. M. Varvartsev, ^uHeopolitychni skhemy v burzhuaznykh falsyfikatsiiakh istorii Ukrainy,” Ukrainskyi istorychnyi zhurnal, no. 2 (1980): 81-91. For discussions of socio-political systems in Eastern Europe at this time, see Jδzef Andrzej Gierowski, “L’Europe centrale au XVIIe siecle et ses principals tendances politiques,” in Mezhdunarodnyi komitet istoricheskikh nauk, XIII Mezhdunarodnyi kongress Istoricheskikh nauk, Moskva, 16-23 avgusta 1970 goda. Doklady Kongressa 1, part 5 (Moscow, 1973), 106-23, and Zbigniew Wojcik, “Poland and Russia in the 17th Century: Problems of Internal Development,” Poland at the 14th International Congress of Historical Sciences in San Francisco: Studies in Comparative History (Wτoc∖aw-Waτsaw-Cracow, 1975), 114-33.

14. Historically, Podlachia has been an ethnographic border zone of

Belorussians, Ukrainians and Poles. The linguistic-ethnic border of Belorussians and Ukrainians has always been vague, and current national and administrative borders cut through the amorphous Polissian region. To a considerable degree, the division of this borderland population between the two cultural-national groups has been dictated by political acts, of which the Union of Lublin was the most important. I include Podlachia in my

discussion of the Ukrainian territories because it was annexed to the

Kingdom of Poland and I exclude the Brest palatinate because it was

retained by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The question of

Ukrainian-Belorussian relations in the early modern period is extremely complex, particularly because of the two peoples’ shared religious-literary culture and, to a considerable degree, common collective consciousness as “Ruthenians.” Although the differentiation of the two national communities begins far earlier than the sixteenth century, the period from 1569 to 1648 served to increase their distinctiveness. But this increasing differentiation should not be exaggerated and any study of the nobles of the Ukrainian lands should deal with the question of links among the “Ruthenian” nobility that inhabited both Ukraine and Belorussia. For questions of Ukrainian-Belorussian relations and the impact of the Union of Lublin, see the bibliography to a discussion in a number of East European periodicals in the 1940s. “Discussions on the Origins of the Ukrainian Nation,” in Myron Korduba, La Iitterature historique sovietique-ukrainienne compte-rendu 1917-1931, reprint of the Warsaw 1930 edition (Munich, 1972), xxxiv-xxxvi (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies 10).

15. The formation of the nobility in the Galician principality and the Ruthenian palatinate constitutes a difficult and controversial topic. Two questions are outstanding. First, it has not been established to what degree the boyars of the Galician-Volhynian principality had taken on the characteristics of a corporate noble order. Second, the origins of the nobles of the Ruthenian palatinate must be examined to determine how many descended from the boyars of the Galician principality and how many descended from later immigrants to the Ukrainian lands. On the social structure of Galicia, see I. A. Linnichenko, Cherty iz istorii soslovii v Iugo-Zapadnoi (Galitskoi) Rusi XIV-XV vv. (Moscow, 1894); K. A. Sofronenko, Obshchestvenno-Politicheskii stroi Galitsko-Volynskoi Rusi Xl-XIlI vv. (Moscow, 1955); V. T. Pashuto, Ocherki po istorii Galitsko-Volynskoi Rusi (Moscow, 1950); Przemysiaw Dabkowski, Stosunki gospodarcze ziemi halickiej w XV wieku (Lviv, 1927) (Pamietnik Historyczno-Prawny 3, no. 4); and Isydor Sharanevych [Izydor Szaraniewicz], Rys Wewnetrznych Stosunkdw Galicyi Wschodniej w drugiej polowie pietnastego wieku (Lviv, 1869). The question of the origins of the nobles has recently been examined for the Lviv land by Andrzej Janeczek in his “Polska ekspansja Osadnicza w ziemi Iwowskiej w XIV-XVI w.,” Przeglfid Historyczny 69 (1978); 597-622. He concludes that by 1578 52.6 per cent of landowning noble families were of Polish descent, 27.3 per cent were of Ruthenian descent and 12.6 per cent were of Moldavian descent (a group that had long been assimilated to the Ruthenians). His figures show a dramatic increase of families of Polish descent between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is likely that the percentage of nobles of Ruthenian descent was much higher in the Przemysl and Halych lands, which were less attractive for immigrants from Polish territories. A useful bibliography on the area under Jagiellonian rule is Ewa Maleczyhska’s section, ^uEpoka Jagiellohska (1385-1572),” of ^uPrzeglgd Iiteratury do dziejδw politycznych ziemi czerwienskiej,” Ziemia Czerwiehska 1, no. 1 (1935); 111-15. Also, see Roos ^uStandewesen und parlamentarische Verfassung," 360, note 67, and the bibliography in Biernacka, Wsie drobnoszIacheckie na Mazowszu ³ Podlasiu (rich in material on the petty nobles of the Ruthenian palatinate, as well as those of the book’s subject, Podlachia and Mazowsze). For family histories, see the works by Dzieduszycki and Drohojowski (mentioned in note 4 above) and Ludwik Wyrostek, Rbd Dragbw Sasbw na Wggrzech ³ Rusi Halickiej (Cracow, 1932) (Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 11). For a summary of the controversy over the petty nobles’ origins, see Iu. H. Hoshko, Naselennia Ukrainskykh Karpat XV-XVHl st. Zaselennia. Mihratsii. Pobut (Kiev, 1976), 3-23. On Podillia and its nobility, see Leon Biaikowski, Podole w XVI wieku. Rysy spoleczne ³ gospodarcze (Warsaw, 1920) and the review of this work by Z. L. Radzimihski in Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 5 (1920) [publ. 1921]; 111-24.

16. In addition to the literature in note 12, one should consult Oskar Halecki, Przylaczenie Podlasia, Wolynia ³ Kijowszczyzny do Korony w roku 1569 (Cracow, 1915) and Jaroslaw Pelenski, “The Incorporation of the Ukrainian Lands of Old Rus’ into Crown Poland (1569): Socio-material Interest and Ideology—A Re-examination,” American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavicists (Warsaw, August 21-27, 1973) 3 (The Hague and Paris, 1973), 19-52.

17. On the Chernihiv lands, see Mykola Vasylenko, ^uPravne polozhennia Chernihivshchyny za polskoi doby (1618-1648),” in Chernihiv ³ pivnichne Livoberezhzhia, ed. Mykhailo Hrushevsky (Kiev, 1928), 290-300 (VUAN, Zbirnyk Istorychno-filolohichnoho viddilu 95 and Zapysky Ukrainskoho naukovoho tovarystva 23).

18. Waclaw Lipinski, “Stanislaw Michal Krzyczewski. Z dziejδw walki szlachty Ukrainskiej w Szeregach powstanczych pod wodza Bohdana Chmielnickiego (r. 1648-1649),” in Waclaw Lipinski, ed., Z dziej∂w Ukrainy, 145-513. This work has been reprinted with a Ukrainian translation as Uchast shliakhty è velykomu ukrainskomu povstanni pid provodom Hetmana Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, ed. Lev R. Bilas (Philadelphia, 1980) in Viacheslav Lypynsky, Tvory 2 in the series Viacheslav Lypynsky, Tvory, arkhiv ³ studii, ed. Roman Zalutsky and Ievhen Zyblykevych of the Skhidno-ievropeiskyi doslidnyi instytut im. V. K. Lypynskoho.

19. For estimates of the commonwealth’s population and the percentage of nobles, see Wyczahski, Polska, 26, and Maciszewski, Szlachta, 35. Problems of Polish historical demography are discussed in Irena Gieysztorowa, Wstgp do demografii Staropolskiej (Warsaw, 1976). For a discussion of difficulties in estimating the number of nobles, see Egon Vielrose, ^wPrzyczynek do demografii szlachty polskiej,” Przeglpd Statystyczny 1 (1938): 328-42; T. Furtak, “Kilka zagadnien z demografii historycznej szlachty polskiej,” Roczniki Dziej∂w Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych 7 (1937): 31-58; and the literature in Roos, ^wStandewesen und parlamentarische Verfassung,” 313, note 8. Roos directs readers to Julian Bartoszewicz’s article ^wSzlachta polska,” in Encyklopedya powszechna [Orgelbranda] 24 (Warsaw, 1867), 677-99, for statistics on the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century nobility, but Bartoszewicz did not work out reliable estimates on the basis of a comprehensive study of demographic material.

20. I have computed Jablonowskfs estimate from his introductory essays in Zrbdla dziejowe. The figure is rough because his estimate for the Kiev and Bratslav palatinates is for the 1620s. The figure also varies in accordance with the inclusion or exclusion of Podlachia. (Jablonowskfs estimates: Ruthenian and Belz palatinates, 572,648; Volhynian palatinate 293,780; Podillian palatinate 97,736; Podlachia palatinate 233,200; Kiev palatinate 234,040; and Bratslav palatinate 311,340.) A number of Polish scholars assert that the estimates of land taxes and the estimates of population per unit of land by Jablonowski and his colleague Adolf Pawinski were too low. See Witold Kula, ^wStan ³ potrzeby badan nad demografιa historyczna,” Roczniki Dziejdw Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych 13 (1951): 24-136; Egon Vielrose, ^wLudnosc Polski od X do XVIII wieku,” Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 5 (1957): 3-49. For a discussion of problems in using hearth taxes for Ukraine, see Zenon Guidon, ^wBadania nad Zaludnieniem Ukrainy w XVII wieku,” Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 13 (1965): 561-6. The Soviet Ukrainian historian Oleksander Baranovych was particularly critical of Jablonowskfs methods and insisted that the population of the Dnieper basin was much greater than the estimates made by Polish historical demographers. See his ^wNaselenie predstepnoi Ukrainy V XVI v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski AN SSSR 32 (1950): 198-232, and Zaliudnennia Volynskoho voievodstva v pershii polovyni XVH st., published by VUAN₁ Sotsiolohichnybekonomichnyi viddil, Komisiia istorychno-heohrafιchna (Kiev, 1930). Soviet Ukrainian historians have frequently sought to portray Polish rule as detrimental to Ukraine and to deny economic and demographic growth. Baranovych goes so far as to speculate that the population may have declined. Baranovych_l Ukraina nakanune Osvoboditelnoi voiny, 128; for his population estimates, see 132. Baranovych’s estimates appear to be greatly inflated. The Soviet Ukrainian historian Olena Kompan estimates the population of the Ukrainian lands in the second half of the seventeenth century as 3,230,000. Mista Ukrainy v druhii polovyni XVII st. (Kiev, 1963). Also see O. S. Kompan, “Do pytannia pro Zaselenist Ukrainy v XVII st.,” Ukrainskyi istorychnyi zhurnal, no. 1 (1960): 65-77.

21. Jablonowskfs essays in Zrbdla dziejowe include some statistics on noble landholders, but not for all the Ukrainian territories. These should be studied in conjunction with the hearth tax sources used by Baranovych and discussed by Guidon (see note 20 above). Additional materials that must be studied include political documents (oaths to the Union of Lublin, dietine instructions), military registers (particularly for the levy of 1621), ecclesiastical records (episcopal elections and synodal records) and, above all, the juridical records of the noble courts. Non-Iandowners will always remain an elusive group. One of the few attempts to count the number of noble families was undertaken by Antoni J. Rolle. In order to determine the number of noble families in the Kiev palatinate, he examined the inventories published for the extant court registry books for the period 1584 to 1696 (sixteen volumes of the series Opis aktovnoi knigi Kievskogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva, 60 vols. [Kiev, 1869—1913]). He found 1,579 family names (367). Dr. Antoni J. [Rolle], “Dzieje szlachty okolicznej w Owruckim powiecie,” Biblioteka Warszawska, no. 2 (1881): 19-39, 183-200, 352-67.

22. For Podlachia, Jablonowski puts the number of sizable landholdings at 950 without estimating the number of nobles inhabiting them and the number of petty nobles at 75,710 (total population 233,200). Zrbdla dziejowe 17, part 3, 34, 77. His discussion of the Ruthenian and Belz palatinates is much less satisfactory. He estimates that there were 530 sizable manors and a mere 1,830 petty noble holders. Zrbdla dziejowe 18, part 2, 143-5. These findings seem suspect. He lists no petty noble holders in the Przemysl and Sanok lands; but in his description of the Przemysl region, he mentions numerous villages inhabited by petty nobles, 330-3. Hence his statistics must be viewed as unreliable. For the other Ukrainian lands, Jablonowski provides no statistics, although his essays contain lists of noble landholders. For landowners in Volhynia, see Baranovych, Zaliudnennia. The lesser percentage of nobles and the greater concentration of landholdings in the eastern Ukrainian territories is discussed in Ivan Krypiakevych, Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Kiev, 1954), 16.

23. For economic trends in Eastern Europe prior to the sixteenth century, see Marian Malowist, Wschbd a Zachbd Europy w XHI-XVI wieku. Konfrontacja Struktur spoleczno-gospodarczych (Warsaw, 1973). Since the Second World War, economic history, including studies on the estate man­agement of the nobility, has flourished in Poland. Malowist, Jerzy Topolski, Andrzej Wyczanski, Antoni Maczak and many others have produced first rate research, but they have confined their studies to the territories of contemporary Poland. Much of this literature is cited in Andrzej Kaminski, “Neo-Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania,” Slavic Review 34 (1975): 253-68. Also see Jerzy Topolski, Gospodarka polska a europejska w XVI-XVII wieku (Poznan, 1977). The once flourishing Lviv school of Polish socio-economic history, which pursued fundamental research on the western Ukrainian territories under the leadership of Franciszek Bujak between the wars, has not continued in that city and since the Second World War the contributions of Polish historians to the study of the area have been limited (except for Maurycy Horn).

Soviet Ukrainian and Russian historians have lacked the originality of their Polish colleagues and have ignored the economic activities of the nobility as a field of study, but they have made major contributions by their studies of the peasantry and the spread of manorial estates. The state of research in Ukrainian economic history is discussed in glowing terms not justified by the modest accomplishments in S. I. Krandievskij, ^uBadania z historii gospodarczej w Ukrainskiej SSR w okresie powojennym (1946-1971),” Roczniki Dziejbw Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych 37 (1976): 121-38. Soviet research has not been reflected in new syntheses, and V. O. Holobutsky, Ekonomichna istoriia Ukrainskoi RSR. Dozhovtnevyi period (Kiev, 1970) remains the only general work on the economic history of the period. Numerous useful studies have appeared in the annual Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy. Disputes on colonization patterns are discussed in Baranovich, “Naselenie.” To understand the emotion of Ukrainian responses to the Polish role in the colonization and economic revival in Ukraine, see Karol Szajnocha, ^uZdobycze pluga polskiego,” Szkice Mstoryczne, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Lviv, 1857-69), 3: 61-80.

24. Regional differences in the commonwealth are discussed in Kamihski, “Neo-Serfdom.” The influence of the Vistula trade route, though with insufficient attention to the Ukrainian territories, is discussed in Honorata Obuchowska-Pysiowa, Handel WiSlahski w 1 polowie XVII wieku (Wroclaw, 1964) and Stanislaw Mielczarski, Rynek zbozowy na ziemach polskich w drugiej polowie XVI ³ w pierwszej polowie XVH wieku. Prbba rejonizacji (Gdansk, 1962). Better records for the western Ukrainian territories have permitted more extensive study of estate economies in these lands, but with more attention to royal lands than to private ones. Kazimierz Arlamowski, Zapatrywania ³ dpzenia gospodarcze szlachty Czerwonoruskiej XVH wieku (Lviv, 1927); V. F. Inkin, K voprosu ob evoliutsii feodalnoi renty v Galichine v XVI-XVIII vv., Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy. 1963 (Vilnius, 1964), 224-45; Iu. M. Grossman, ^uFolvarki gosudarstvennykh imenii Russkogo ³ Belzkogo voevodstva vo vtoroi polovine XVI v.,” Ezhegodnik po agrarnoi istorii Vostochnoi Evropy 1961 (Riga, 1963), 135—46; Iu. M. Hrossman, ^uOrendy maietkiv ta ikh vplyv na Stanovyshche zakhidno-ukrainskykh selian v pershii polovyni XVII st.,” Pytannia z istorii SRSR (1958), 107-19. For a discussion of all the Ukrainian territories, see Baranovich, Ukraina nakanune, 67-92. The question of estate records is discussed in V. I. Samoilenko, ^uMaietkovi akty XIV-XVII st.,” Istorychm dzherela ta ikh Vykorystannia 2 (1966): 5-12.

25. For changes in landholding patterns in the commonwealth, see Wyczanski, Polska, 207-9. Jablonowski, Zrbdla dziejowe contains useful materials on the pattern of landholding (noble, royal and ecclesiastical) at the end of the sixteenth century. Also see Baranovich, Ukraina nakanune, and Baranovych, Zaliudnennia. On the formation of great magnates’ estates, see Alina Wawrzynczykowa, Rozwbj wielkiej wlasnoSci na Podlasiu w XV ³ XVl wieku (Wroclaw, 1951) (Prace Wrociawskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego, Series A, no. 48); Wladysiaw Tomkiewicz, Jeremi Wisniowiecki (1612-1651) (Warsaw, 1933) (Rozprawy Historyczne Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego 12); Aleksander Tamawski, DzialalnoSb gospodarcza Jana Zamoyskiego, Kanclerza ³ Hetmana Wielkiego Koronnego 1572-1605 (Lviv, 1935) (Badania z Dziejδw Spolecznych ³ Gospodarczych 18); and Franciszek Rawita-Gawronski, ^uLosy wielkiej fortuny na kresach ukrainnych,” in Studya ³ szkice historyczne, series 2 (Lviv, 1903), 1-28 (on the Ruzhynsky family).

26. For the deforming influence of the eastern magnates, see Jarema Maciszewski, ^uSpoleczenstwo," in Polska XVII wieku, ed. Janusz Tazbir, 146. For problems of classification of groups of the nobility, see Maciszewski, Szlachta polska, 7-23, 54—71. On the relative openness of the magnate elite in the kingdom, see Maciszewski, Szlachta polska, 55-6. For a discussion of the magnate stratum, including problems of definition, see Wladysiaw Czaplihski and Adam Kersten, ed., Magnateria polska jako warstwa spoleczna (Torun, 1974). The magnate stratum in the first half of the seventeenth century has been described in an excellent, albeit popular, book by Wiadyslaw Czaplihski and J6zef Dlugosz, Zycie codzienne magnaterii polskiej w XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1976). The authors character­ize the life of magnates, but have not carried out systematic research on the stratum. They devote little attention to regional factors or to the role of the magnates in the Ukrainian lands. Although it deals with a later period, the work of Teresa Zielihska, Magnateria polska epoki saskiej (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow-Gdahsk, 1977) is extremely useful for its exami­nation (on the basis of a comprehensive study of the social group) of what constituted the magnate stratum and how magnate families rose and fell. For an interpretation of Ukrainian society as totally magnate-dominated and sub-infeuded, see Baranovich, Ukraina nakanune, 49-53. On the ques­tion of “feudalism” in the commonwealth in the early modern period, see Tadeusz Manteuffel, "On Polish Feudalism,” Mediaevalia et Humanistica 16 (1964): 94—104. The question of noble-servitors in Volhynia is being researched by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski as a Ph. D. thesis at the University of Indiana. The functioning of magnates’ clienteles in Volhynia is treated in Inge Auerbach, “Andrej MichajloviC Kurbskij. Sein Leben und sein Werk” (Habil.-schrift: Marburg University, 1980). On magnates of Ruthenian extraction in the Ukrainian lands, see Wanda Dobrowolska, MiodoSt Jerzego ³ Krzysztofa Zbaraskich (z wstςpem î rodzie Zbaraskich ³ zyciorysem Janusza Zbaraskiego wojewody braciawskiego) (Przemysl, 1926). Also see the biographies cited in note 71 below. For a description of an indigenous noble’s rise to magnate status, see Frank E. Sysyn₁ “Adam Kysil, Statesman of Poland-Lithuania: A Case Study in the Commonwealth’s Rule of the Ukraine” (Ph. D. thesis: Harvard University, 1976). For disputes on the significance of the title “kniaz,” see Julian Bartoszewicz, Kniaz ³ Xig⅛ (Cracow, 1876) and Z. L. Radziminski, O tozsamosci tytui∂w kniaz ³ ksigiξ w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (Lviv, 1908).

27. The rise of the middle nobility as a political and cultural power in Volhynia is discussed in Dembihska, Wpiywy, 42-62. For discussions of such families, see Franciszek Rawita-Gawronski, “Kisielowie, ich rod- pochodzenie-posiadlosci,” Przewodnik Naukowy ³ Literacki 40 (1912): 1,008-23, and Kazimierz Pulaski, “R6d Kierdejow podolskich. Monografia historyczno-genealogiczna,” Szkice ³ poszukiwania historyczne, series 3 (Cracow, 1906), 169-94. Also see T. Faraniuk, "Vinnytska shliakhta v XVI v.,” Istorychno-heohraflchnyi zbirnyk 1 (1927) (UVAN Zbirnyk Istorychno-Iilolohichnoho viddilu 46).

28. The best bibliography on the petty nobility is in Biernacka, Wsie drobnoszlacheckie. Also see Volodymyr Antonovych [Vladimir Antonovich], "Soderzhanie aktov ob okolichnoi shliakhte,” in Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 1, part 4 (Kiev, 1867), 1-62; the introduction by Mykhailo Hrushevsky [Mikhail Grushevsky] to the volume Materialy dlia istorii mestnogo Upravleniia v sviazi s istorieiu soslovnoi Organizatsii. Akty Barskogo Starostva XVI-XVII v., which is volume 1, part 8 of Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii (Kiev, 1893), 1-126; and Hoshko₁ Naselennia Ukrainskykh Karpat. On the affair of the bishopric of Przemysl and the local petty nobility, see Antoni Prochaska, "Wladyka Krupecki w walce z Dyzun⅛₁^,* Przewodnik Powszechny 139-40 (1918): 731-52; 141-2 (1919): 38-47, 283-94, 359-65; and Wladyslaw Lozinski, Prawem ³ lewem. Obyczaje ïà Czerwonej Rusi w pierwszej poiowie XVII wieku, 5th ed., 2 vols. (Cracow, 1957), 2: 238-49. On the service nobility, see Pleszczynski’s work on Volhynia (see note 26). For a discussion of boyars after 1569, see Baranovich, Ukraina nakanune, 52-3.

29. On pr∞fs of noble status, see Wladyslaw Semkowicz, Wywody Szlachectwa w Polsce XIV-XVII w. (Lviv, 1913) (Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 3 [1911—12]). There is no contemporary discussion of falsification of noble origins in the Ukrainian lands comparable to Walerian Nekanda-Trepka₁ Liber Generationis Plebeanorum ("Liber Chamorumⁿ), ed. Wlodzimierz Dworzaczek, 2 vols. (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow₁ 1963) for the Cracow area.

30. On the Ukrainian peasantry, see the literature on agricultural production in notes 23 and 24, and I. D. Boiko, Selianstvo Ukrainy v druhii polovyni XVI-pershii polovyni XVII st. (Kiev, 1963) and volume 1, ed. V. O. Diadychenko et al., of Istoriia selianstva Ukrainskoi RSR è 2-kh tt. (Kiev, 1967). For disorders in the Carpathian region, see V. V. Hrabovetsky₁ Antyfeodalna borotba karpatskoho Opryshkivstva XVI-XIX st. (Lviv, 1966) and Maurycy Horn, Walka chiopdw Czerwonoruskich z wyzyskiem feudalnym w Iatach 1600-1648, part 1: Zbiegostwo ³ zb∂jnictwo karpackie (Opole₁ 1974), and part 2: Chiopi ddbr koronnych w walce przeciw zwigkszaniu robocizny ³ danin (Opole₁ 1974) (Zeszyty Naukowej WSP w Opolu, series B, Studia ³ Monografie 40).

31. On cities and towns in the commonwealth, see Jan Ptasnik₁ Miasta ³ mieszczafιstwo w dawnej Polsce, 2d ed. (Warsaw, 1949). On the Ukrainian lands, see P. V. Mykhailyna₁ Vyzvolna borotba trudovoho naselennia mist Ukrainy (1569-1654) (Kiev, 1975); P. V. Mykhailyna₁ Mista Ukrainy v period feodalizmu. (Do pytannia pro Stanovyshche mist v umovakh inozemnoho ponevolennia v kintsi XVI-pershii polovyni XVII st.) (Chernivtsi₁ 1971); O. S. Kompan₁ Mista Ukrainy v druhii polovyni XVII st. (Kiev, 1963); Istoriia Kieva. V 2-kh tt., ed. O. K. Kasymenko (Kiev, 1959-60); Maurycy Horn, Walka klasowa ³ konflikty Spoieczne w miastach Rusi Czerwonej w Iatach 1600-1647 na tie Stosunkdw gospodarczych (Wroclaw-Cracow-Warsaw, 1972), and Elibieta Hornowa₁ Stosunki ekonomiczno-spoieczne w miastach ziemi halickiej w Iatach 1590-1648 (Opole₁ 1963) (Zeszyty Naukowe WSP w Opolu, series B, Studia ³ Monografie 40). On Kiev’s cultural role, see F. P. Shevchenko, Rol Kyieva V mizhslovianskykh zviazkakh è XVII-XVIII st.. Dopovidi Radianskoi delehatsii. V mizhnarodnyi zizd slavistiv (Sofiia, veresen 1963 r.) (Kiev, 1963) and F. Ernst, “Kyivska arkhitektura XVII v.,” Kyiv ta ioho okolytsia V istorii ³ pamiatkakh, ed. Mykhailo Hrushevsky (Kiev, 1926), 125-66 (Zapysky Ukrainskoho naukovoho tovarystva 22 and VUAN₁ Zbirnyk Istorychno-Filolohichnoho viddilu, Istorychna sektsiia 45). For noble-burgher relations, see Antoni Prochaska₁ Lwdw ³ szlachta (Lviv, 1919) (Biblioteka Lwowska 24, no. 5) and S. T. Biletsky₁ “Borotba mishchan Lvova proty zasyllia Shliakhty v pershii polovyni XVII st.,” Z istorii Zakhidnoukrainskykh zemel 1 (1957): 15-24.

32. The most recent comprehensive work on the brotherhoods is la. D. Isaievych₁ Bratstva ta ikh rol v rozvytku ukrainskoi kultury Xvi-XVIIIst. (Kiev, 1966).

33. The two best general works on the Cossacks are Zbigniew Wojcik, Dzikie Pola w ogniu. O kozaczyznie w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej, 3d ed. revised (Warsaw, 1968) and V. O. Holobutsky [V. A. Golobutsky], Zaporozhskoe kazachestvo (Kiev, 1957). On the social and ethnic composition of the Cossacks, see Wladyslaw Tomkiewicz, “O skladzie spolecznym ³ etnicznym Kozaczyzny Ukrainnej na przelomie XVI ³ XVII wieku,” Przeglad Historyczny 37 (1948): 248-60. The noble descent of Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny has been disputed. For a thorough discussion of his presumed forebears that constitutes a monograph on the petty nobility of the Przemysl area, see Bohdan Barvinsky, "Konashevychi v peremyskii zemli V XV ³ XVI st. Henealohichno-Istorychna monohrafiia,” Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka IOO (1930): 9-175 (Iuvileinyi zbirnyk na poshanu akad. Kyryla Studynskoho, pt. 2).

34. On this element of the population, see Stanislaw Grodziski, Ludzie iuzni. Studium z historii pahstwa ³ prawa polskiego (Cracow, 1961).

35. On the position of the Catholic church in this period, see KoScidi w Polsce, ed. Jerzy Kloczowski, 2 vols. to date (Cracow, 1966-9), 2: Wieki XVI-XVI∏-, and Janusz Tazbir, Historia Koscioia Katolickiego w Polsce 1460-1795 (Warsaw, 1966).

36. For an excellent synthesis of scholarship on the Orthodox church, see Kazimierz Chodynicki, Koscibi Prawoslawny a Rzeczpospolita Polska 1370-1632 (Warsaw, 1934). For the 1632-48 period, one should turn to the monumental work of S. T. Golubev, Kievskii Mitropolit Petr Mogila ³ ego Spodvizhniki (Opyt tserkovno-istoricheskogo issledovaniia), 2 vols. (Kiev, 1883-98). Of more recent works, see Ludomir Bienkowski, "Organizacja Kosciola Wschodniego w Polsce,” in KoScidi w Polsce 2: 733-1050 (on the Orthodox and Uniate churches), and Ivan Vlasovsky, Narys istorii Ukrainskoi pravoslavnoi tserkvy, 4 vols. in 5 books (New York, 1955-66). There is no work on the Uniate church that equals Chodynicki¹S work on the Orthodox church. One must still turn to the standard nineteenth-century histories of Mykhailo Harasevych (Harasiewicz), Annales Ecclesiae Ruthenae (Lviv, 1862); J. Pelesz, Geschichte der Union der Ruthenischen Kirche mit Rom von den Qltesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1878-80); and Edward Likowski, Unia Brzeska (1596) (Poznan, 1896). This situation is particularly unsatisfactory because, while research on the Orthodox church has stagnated in the last thirty years, numerous sources and specialized monographs have appeared on the Uniates, especially in the Analecta 0SBM. The only general synthesis is the series of valuable but popular lectures of A. H. Velyky, Z Htopysu khrystyianskoi Ukrainy, 9 vols. (Rome, 1968-77).

37. For religious affairs in the commonwealth during this period, see Ambroise Jobert, De Luther it Mohila: La Pologne dans la crise de la Chretiente 1517-1648 (Paris, 1974) (Collection historique de I¹Institut d’etudes slaves 21). For literature on the various churches in Ukraine in this period, see Isydor I. Patrylo, Dzherela ³ bibliohraβia istorii ukrainskoi tserkvy (Rome, 1975) (Analecta OSBM 33, series 2, section 1) and his addendum "Dzherela ³ Wbliohrafiia istorii Ukrainskoi tserkvy,” Analecta OSBM 10, series 2, section 2 (1979): 405-87. Not included in the bibliography is the recent study on Protestants in Ukraine by George H. Williams, Protestants in the Ukraine during the Period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 2 (1978): 41-72, 184-210.

38. See P. G. Viktorovsky, ^aZapadnorusskie dvorianskie familii, Otpavshie ot pravoslaviia v kontse XVI ³ XVII v.,” Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, 1908, no. 9, 17-60; no. 10, 189-206; no. 11, 344-60; no. 12, 502-24; 1909, no. 6, 178-214; 1910, no. 3, 339-92; no. 11, 409-20; 1911, no. 2, 259-73; no. 6: 257-72; nos. 7-8: 396-424; K. Gorovsky, “Russkie dvorianskie familii,” Vremmenik Instituta Stavropigiiskogo za 1910 god (Lviv), 8-44, and M. Iuzefovich, ^uPrilozhenie ê predisloviiu. Tablitsa Shliakhetskikh rodov iugozapadnogo kraia...,” Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 1, part 4 (Kiev, 1867): i-xiii.

39. For the occupants of sees in the Ukrainian territories, see volume 2 of KoScidl w Polsce. Piasecki, bishop of Przemysl, was noted for his chronicle, Chronica Gestorum in Europa Singularium (Cracow, 1645). Wereszczynski, bishop of Kiev, was a noble of Ruthenian descent who proposed major reforms in the Ukrainian territories. For a description of how he passed over to the Catholic church, see Szajnocha, ^uJak Rus polszczala,” Szkice historyczne 4: 173-90. On Wereszczynski s career and thought, see Edward Winkler, ^αJ6zef Wereszczynski, biskup kijowski,” Przeglfid Powszechny 147-8 (1920): 243-52; 149-50 (1921): 383-90; 151-2 (1921): 414-21; 153-4 (1922): 120-5.

40. In addition to Williams’ “Protestants in the Ukraine,” see Gottfried Schramm, Der polnische Adel und die Reformation (Wiesbaden, 1965) (Verbffentlichungen des Instituts fur europaische Geschichte Mainz 36) and Janusz Tazbir, ^uAntytrynitaryzm na ziemiach Ukraihskich w XVII wieku,” Z polskich studibw slawistycznych, series 4, Historia (Seventh International Congress of Slavists) (Warsaw, 1973), 91-120.

41. For the social origins of the Orthodox and Uniate clergy, in addition to the literature in note 36, see [Ignacy Stebelski], ^uOstatnie prace Stebelskiego,” ed. W. Serdyhski in Scriptores Rerum Polonicarum 6 (1878): 263-396 (Wydawnictwa Komisyi Hist. Akad. Umiejetnosci w Krakowie 10 and Archiwum Komisyi Historycznej 1); Leonid Sonevytsky, Ukrainskyi epyskopat Peremyskoi ³ Kholmskoi eparkhii v XV-XVI st. (Rome, 1955) {Analecta OSBM, series 2, section 1, vol. 6); Sophia Senyk, “Women’s Monasteries in Ukraine and Belorussia to the Period of the Suppressions” (Ph. D. thesis: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1979); Mykhailo Hrushevsky, ^uStorinka do istorii silskoho dukhovenstva (po sambirskym aktam XVI v.),ⁿ Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka 34 (1900): 1-82; Orest Levytsky [Levitsky], “luzhno-russkie arkhierei XVI ³ XVII st.,” Kievskaia starina, no. 1 (1882): 49-100 and Isydor Sharanevych [Izydor Szaraniewicz], KoScielna unia na Rusi ³ wplyw jej na zmianς Spolecznego Stanowiska Swieckiego duchowieħstwa ruskiego (Lviv, 1899). On the church wealth that endowed ecclesiastical positions and the problem of patronage, see Isydor Sharanevych [Szaraniewicz], Rzut oka na beneficya KoSciola Ruskiego za czasδw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej pod wzgledem historyi, przedewszystkiem î Stosunku 'swieckiego duchowiefιstwa ruskiego w Galicyi do ziemi w tym okresie (Lviv, 1875) and M. Vladimirsky-Budanov, “Tserkovnye imushchestva v Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii V XVI veku,” Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 4, part 8 (1907): 3-224. On the greater success of the Union in Belorussia, see Wladyslaw Tomkiewicz, ^uDzieje unji koscielnej w Wielkiem Ksiestwie Litewskim (1596-1795),” Pamiξtnik VI Zjazdu Historykow Polskich w Wilnie 17-20 wrzeSnia 1935, 1 (Lviv, 1935), 325-6.

42. The most recent work on Skarga is Janusz Tazbir, Piotr Skarga Szermierz kontrreformacji (Warsaw, 1978). For materials on Orthodox clerics’ glorification of the nobility, see Kh. Titov, Materiialy dlia istorii knyzhnoi spravy na Ukraini v XVI-XVIII vv.. Vsezbirka peredmov do Ukrainskykh Starodrukiv (Kiev, 1924) (VUAN, Zbirnyk Istorychno-Filolohichnoho viddilu 17).

43. On developments in Polish Catholicism in this period, see Janusz Tazbir, ^uSarmatyzacja katolicyzmu w XVII wieku,” in Janusz Pelc, ed., Wiek XVII—kontrreformacja-barok. Prace z historii kultury (Wroclaw- Warsaw-Cracow, 1970), 7-38.

44. On the nobility’s role in the governance of Reformed churches, see Viacheslav Lypynsky, ^uAriianskyi soimyk v Kyselyni na Volyni v maiu 1638 r. (Prychynok do istorii ariianstva na Ukraini),” Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka 96 (1910): 41-57, and the literature in note 40 above.

45. On lay influence in the Orthodox church, see Viacheslav Zaikyn [Zaikin], Uchastie svetskogo elementa v tserkovnom upravlenii. Vybornoe nachalo ³ sobornost V Kievskoi mitropolii v XVI ³ XVII v. (Warsaw, 1930); Orest Levytsky [Levitsky], ^uCherty Vnutrennogo stroia Zapadno-Russkoi tserkvi,” Kievskaia starina, no. 8 (1884): 627-54; and Kazimierz Chodynicki, “Z dziejδw prawoslawia na Wolyniu (922-1596),” Rocznik Woiyhski 5-6 (1937): 52-60. On the role of Ostrozky, see Kazimierz Lewicki, Ksigiξ Konstanty Ostrogski a Unja brzeska 1596 r. (Lviv, 1933) (Archiwum Towarzystwa Naukowego we Lwowie 11, section 2), 1-224. For a seventeenth-century discussion of the role of the nobility in the Orthodox church, see A. H. Velyky, ^uAnonimnyi proiekt P. Mohyly po Ziedynenniu Ukrainskoi tserkvy 1645 r.,” Analecta OSBM 4 (10), series 2, section 2 (1963): 484-97.

46. The letters of Metropolitan Iosyf Rutsky illustrate the clerical control of the Uniate church. Athanasius G. Welykyj, ed. Epistolae Josephi Velamin Rutskyj Metropolitae Kioviensis Catholici (1613-1637) (Rome, 1956) (Analecta OSBM, series 2, section 3, Epistolae Metropolitarum, Archiepiscoporum et Episcoporum, 1).

47. Vyshensky has consequently enjoyed popularity among Soviet scholars as a

democrat. See the selection from his works in Biletsky, Khrestomatiia, 123-55.

48. For the commonwealth as a whole, see Karol Gorski’s studies, ^uReligijnosc Sarmatyzmu a kwietyzm,” Teksty, no. 4 (1974): 58-75 and Od religijnoSci do mitsyki. Zarys dziej∂w Zycia Wewnetrznego w Polsce_t (Lublin, 1962), part 1: 966-1,795.

49. On Nemyrych, see Stanisiaw Kot, Georges Niemirycz et la Iutte centre !'intolerance au 17-e sfecle (The Hague, 1960). Nemyrych did not remain dedicated to Anti-Trinitarianism. His conversion to Orthodoxy and call for Protestants to accept Orthodoxy in order to fulfil their desire to return to the early Christian faith represent an interesting chapter of inter-religious relations in Ukraine.

50. Memoriale Rerum Gestarum in Polonia 1632-1656, 5 vols. (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1968-75) (Polska Akademia Nauk, Oddzial w Krakowie, Materialy Komisji Nauk Historycznych, 15, 18, 22, 25, 26).

51. For wills by major Orthodox leaders, see those of Adam Kysil in “Try testamenty Adama Kysilia,” Ukraina_t no. 1-2 (1918): 49-67, and of Halshka Hulevychivna in S. Golubev, Istoriia Kievskoi dukħovnoi akademii_t 1: Period do-Mogilianskii (Kiev, 1886), ^uPrilozheniia," 113-17. The proliferation of monasteries in Volhynia is documented in Max Boyko, Bibliography of Church Life in Volhynia (Bloomington, Indiana, 1974), 51-73 (Publications of the Volhynian Bibliographic Center 9).

52. On Rutsky’s activities, see Miroslaw Szegda, Dzialalnosc OrganizacyJna Metropolity Jδzefa IV Welamina Rutskiego (1613-1637) (Warsaw, 1967).

53. For the problem of religious tolerance and the growth of intolerance, see Janusz Tazbir, Pahstwo bez stos∂w. Szkice z dziej∂w tolerancji w Polsce XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1958); Myroslaw Korolko, Klejnot Swobodnego sumienia. Polemika wokδi konfederacji Warszawskiej w Iatach 1573-1658 (Warsaw, 1974); and Henryk Wisner, ^uWalka î realizacje konfederacji Warszawskiej za panowania Zygmunta III w Iatach 1587-1632,” Odrodzenie ³ Reformacja w Polsce 19 (1974): 129-49. For the influence of the Counter Reformation and the cultural trends of the seventeenth century, see Janusz Tazbir, Rzeczpospolita ³ Swiat. Studia z dziejδw kultury XVII wieku (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1971); Pelc, ed., Wiek XVII (in particular Jarema Maciszewski’s essay ^uMechanizmy Icsztaltowania sie opinii publicznej w Polsce doby Kontrreformacji," 55-70); and the discussion ^uUmyslowosc ³ ideologia polska XVII w.,” VIII Powszechny Zjazd Historykδw Polskich we Krakowie 14-17 WrzeSnia 1958, 3, ed. Kazimierz Lepszy (Warsaw, 1960), 121-54.

54. The most recent significant Soviet contribution to the history of the Jews in Ukraine is S. Ia. Borovoi, ^uNatsionalno-Osvoboditelnaia voina Ukrainskogo naroda protiv polskogo Vladychestva ³ evreiskoe naselenie Ukrainy," Istoricheskie zapiski AN SSSR 9 (1940): 81-124.

55. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2d ed., 16: Poland-Lithuania 1500-1650 (New York-London, 1976). Baron uses Samuel Ettinger’s doctoral thesis and articles on Jewish colonization of Ukraine, 192-213, 401-2, note 20. Also see Bernard Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in

Poland from IlOO to 1800 (Philadelphia, 1972).

56. Maurycy Horn, Zydzi na Rusi Czerwonej w XVI ³ pierwszej polowie XVII w. DzialalnoSt gospodarcza na tie rozwoju demograficznego (Warsaw, 1975).

57. Baron, A Social and Religious History, 16:192. For a discussion of Jewish military taxes and duties, see Maurycy Horn, Powinnosci wojenne Zyddw w Rzeczypospolitej w XVI ³ XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1978). On anti-Semitism in literature, see Kazimierz Bartoszewicz, Antysemityzm w Hteraturze polskiej XV-XVII w. (Cracow, 1914). On converts from Judaism who became nobles (few are listed before the eighteenth century), see the two volumes of Ludwik Piotrkowski [Korwin], Szlachta mojieszowa (Cracow, 1938) and Szlachta neoficka (Cracow, 1939).

58. In particular, see his Armianskie kolonii na Ukraine v Istochnikakh ³ literature XV-XIX vekov (Istoriograficheskii ocherk) (Erevan, 1962); his contributions to the volumes Istoricheskie sviazi ³ druzhba Ukrainskogo ³ armianskogo narodov: Sbornik materialov Nauchnoi sessii (Erevan, 1961), Sbornik materialov Vtoroi ukrainsko-armianskoi nauchnoi sessii (Kiev, 1965) and Sbornik dokladov (Erevan, 1971); and his article “The Armenians in the Time of Hetman Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyj,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1979-80): 166-88. On Armenian noble families, see [Ludwik Piotrkowski], Ormiahskie rody Szlacheckie (Cracow, 1934).

59. For the nobility’s pacifism in foreign policy, see the discussions in VIII

Powszechny Zjazd 3: 70-119; Jarema Maciszewski, Polska a Moskwa 1603-1618. Opinie ³ Stanowiska Szlachty polskiej (Warsaw, 1968); and Henryk Wisner, “Opinia Szlachecka Rzeczypospolitej wobec polityki Szwedzkiej Zygmunta III w Iatach 1587-1632,” Zapiski Historyczne. Kwartalnik Po'swiξcony Historii Pomorza ³ Krajδw Baltyckich 38, no. 2 (1973): 9-50. On the commonwealth’s international situation, also see the essay by Wojcik in Polska XVII wieku, 13-51. On the military, see Jan Wimmer, Zarys dziej∂w wojskowosci polskiej do roku 1864, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1965-6) and Bohdan Baranowski, Organizacja wojska polskiego w Iatach trzydziestych ³ Czterdziestyeh XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1957) (Prace Komisji Wojskowo-Historycznej Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, series A, 10)....

60. On the size and cost of the army, see Jan Wimmer, “Wojsko ³ skarb Rzeczypospolitej u schylku XVI ³ w pierwszej polowie XVII wieku,” Studia ³ Materialy do Historii Wojskowosci 14, no. 1 (1968): 3-91. For an exam­ple of a career made in the military, see Adam Kersten, Stefan Czarniecki, 1599-1665 (Warsaw, 1963). On the place of the army in the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, see Henryk Wisner, “Wojsko w Spoleczenstwie Iitewskim pierwszej polowy XVII wieku,” Przeglad Historyczny 66 (1975): 41-60.

61. On Tatar attacks, see Marycy Horn, ⁴⁴Chronologia ³ zasieg najazdow tatarskich w Iatach 1600-1647,” Studia ³ Materialy do Historii WojskowoSci 7 (1962): 3-71 and his Skutki ekonomiczne najazdδw tatarskich z Iat 1605-1633 ïà Rus Czerwong (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1964). In the middle of the sixteenth century, the Volhynian nobility had registered its complaints about its exceptionally heavy military service because it was constantly engaged against the Tatars, while the nobilities of other lands of the grand duchy fought only occasionally, and then against the Muscovites. Jablonowski, Zrbdla dziejowe 6, xiv.

62. For discussion of the recognition of the delegates from the Ukrainian lands that military expenditures were essential to their lands’ defence, see Frank Sysyn, “Adam Kysil,” 156-8. On a hetman’s career, see Antoni Prochaska, Hetman Stanisiaw Zblkiewski (Warsaw, 1927). On the role of confederations, see Kaczmarczyk, Historia, 128, 243-5, and Jarema Maciszewski, Wojna domowa w Polsce (1606-1609), 1 (Wroclaw- Warsaw-Cracow, 1960). For nobles’ attitudes toward levies in the western Ukrainian lands, see Kazimierz Hahn, Pospolite ruszenie wedle uchwai Sejmikowych ruskich od XVI do XVIH wieku (Lviv, 1928) (Pamietnik Historyczno-Prawny 9, no. 4).

63. Lozinski, Prawem ³ lewem. On magnates’ armies, see Krzysztof Dembski, “Wojska nadworne magnatδw polskich w XVI ³ XVII wieku,” Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. Historia 1 (1956): 49-96.

64. On magnates’ initiation of foreign adventures, see Kaczmarczyk, Historia, 179-80, and Maciszewski, Polska a Moskwa.

65. On the conduct of foreign affairs, see Zbigniew W6jcik, ed., Polska siuiba dyplomatyczna XVl-XVHI wieku (Warsaw, 1966). On relations with the Tatars, see Bohdan Baranowski, Stosunki polsko-tatarskie w Iatach 1632-1648 (L∂dz, 1949) (Prace Instytutu Historycznego Uniwersytetu Lddzkiego 1). On the role of the hetmans in foreign policy, see Waclaw Zarzycki, Dyplomacja hetmanbw w dawnej Polsce (Warsaw-Poznah, 1976) (Bydgoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Prace Wydzialu Nauk Humanistycznych, Series E, 8). On the selection of hetmans, see Wlodzimierz Dworzaczek, “Kto w Polsce dzieriyl bulawy?” Przeglgd Historyczny 39 (1949): 163-70.

66. Orest Levytsky wrote a number of excellent studies on the Ukrainian nobility of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See his “Ganna Montovt,” Kievskaia starina, no. 1-3 (1888): 94-161; “Ocherki Starinnogo byta Volyni ³ Ukrainy,” Kievskaia starina, no. 4 (1889) 99-123; no. 11 (1889): 350-68; no. 1 (1891): 19-39; no. 2 (1891): 269-80; “Anna-Aloiza kniazhna Ostrozhskaia,” Kievskaia starina, no. 11 (1883): 329-73; and his introduction, “Akty î brachnom prave ³ semeinom byte v Iugo-Zapadnoi Rusi V XVI-XVII w.,” to Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 3, part 8 (Kiev, 1909). For bibliographies of the major Polish scholars who wrote on Ukrainian history in this period, see Leonyd Dobrovolsky, “Edvard-Leopold Rulikovsky, znavets Kyivshchyny (1825-1900),” VUAN. Zapysky Istorychno-filolohichnoho viddilu 18 (1928): 75-112. Also see Zygmunt Luba Radzimihski S. Kazimierz Pulaski (1845-1926). Wspomnienie posmiertne (Cracow, 1928); Antoni J. [Rolle], Wybdr pism, ed. Waciaw Zawadzki, 3 vols. (Cracow, [1966]) (there is a list of his publications in volume 1, page 18); K. Sochaniewicz, “S. Zygmunt Luba Radziminski. Prezes honorowy Polskiego Towarzystwa Heraldycznego,” Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 9 (1928-29) [publ. 1930]: 301-18; and Z. L. Radziminski, “Jaren Marek Gozdawa Gi⅛ycki. Wspomnienie posmiertne,” Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 6 (1924-25) [publ. 1926]: 233-43.

67. Art historians have perforce dealt with “elitist” culture. See Platon Biletsky, Ukrainskyi portretnyi zhyvopys XVII-XVIII st.. Problemy Stanovlennia ³ rozvytku (Kiev, 1969); the Lviv art historian Mieczyslaw Gebarowicz, Portret XVI-XVHI wieku we Lwowie (Wrociaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1969); and P. M. Zholtovsky, Ukrainskyi zhyvopys XVII-XVIII st. (Kiev, 1978). The best ethnographic work dealing with the petty nobility in this period is Hoshko, Naselennia Ukrainskykh Karpat. Soviet research currently being ∞nducted on “Boikivshchyna” should result in materials on the life expectancy, diet, fertility and farming techniques of the petty nobles of the Carpathians.

68. Particularly useful are Jan Stanislaw Bystron, Dzieje obyczaj∂w w dawnej Polsce. Wiek XVI-XVHI, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1960); Wladysiaw Czaplinski, Dawne czasy. Opowiadania ³ szkice historyczne z XVII wieku (Wroclaw 1957); Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedja Staropolska, 4 vols. (Warsaw, 1900-3); Wladyslaw Lozinski, Zycie polskie w dawnych wiekach, 6th ed. (Warsaw, 1937); Maria Koczerska, Rodzina Szlachecka w Polsce pδznego Sredniowiecza (Warsaw, 1975); and Aleksander Briickner, Dzieje kultury polskiej, 2d. ed., 3 vols. (Warsaw, 1957-69).

69. The most penetrating analysis of the elements and changes in Ukrainian culture in the sixteenth century is Orest Zilynsky, “Dukhova heneza pershoho Ukrainskoho Vidrodzhennia,” Stezhi. Zhurnal Ukrainskoho Studentskoho Seredovyshcha Nimechchyny ta Avstrii 1, nos. 7-10 (1946-7): 6-20. For a critical view of Ukrainian spiritual culture, see Georgii Florovsky, Puti russkogo bogosloviia (Paris, 1937). Florovsky particularly condemned the decline of Byzantine spirituality and the Latinizing tendencies of Mohyla. On Byzantine influences, see Ihor &v&nko, “Byzantium and the Eastern Slavs after 1453,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 2 (1978): 5-25.

70. Although Polish scholars have frequently lauded the spread of “Polish culture” and “Western civilization” to the Ukrainian lands, they have seldom examined the process, defined its components and analysed the changes. Frequently, “Poland-West-Europe” is assumed to be a monolithic concept associated with a “higher civilization.” No attempt has been made to study the possible regeneration of Byzantine or pan-Christian elements in Ukrainian culture or to establish which new influences were specifically Polish as opposed to pan-European, German or Italian. Thus an important problem has been obscured by lofty eulogies to the Polish civilizing mission and virulent reactions by fervent Orthodox and by patriotic Ukrainians. For examples of the mission mentality in the works of reputable scholars, see Aleksander Jablonowski, Historya Rusi Poludniowej do upadku Rzeczypospolitej (Cracow, 1912) and Szajnocha, “Zdobycze piuga polskiego.” On “Occidentalism” in Polish historiography, see Andrzej Wierzbicki, ^uOkcydentalizm w Iiistoriografii polskiej. Prδba konstrukcji modelu,” Przeglad Humanistyczny 19, no. 8 (1975): 35-43. The best discussion of Polish cultural influence on eastern peoples of the commonwealth is Aleksander Briickner, ^uWplywy polskie na Litwie ³ Slowianszczyznie wschodniej,” in Polska w kulturze powszechnej, ed. Feliks Konieczny, pt. 1 (Cracow, 1918), 153-66. On German influences in Ukraine, see Josef Matl, ^uDer Anteil des deutschen Geisteslebens an der Verwestlichung der Ukrainischen und grossrussichen Kultur (15-17 jh.),” Slidostdeutsche Forschungen 4 (1939): 14-55. For a discussion of Polish influences on the life of the Ukrainian nobility, see Anna Dembihska, Wplywy kultury polskiej na Wolyh w XVI wieku (na Ionie warstwy Szlacheckiej) (Poznan, 1930) (Prace Komisji Historycznej Poznahskiego Towarzystwa Przyjacihl Nauk 16).

71. For memoir literature of this period, see I. Krypiakevych, ^uMemuary Ukraintsiv XVI-XVIIi st.,” Stara Ukraina 9-10 (1924): 126-32. In addi­tion to the biographical works already cited (Tomkiewicz, Jeremi Wisniowiecki', Sysyn, ^uAdam KysiΓ; Golubev, Mitropolit Petr Mogila∖ Lewicki, Ksipig Konstanty Ostrogski-, Levytsky (Levitsky), “Ganna Montovt” and ^uAnna-Aloiza kniazhna Ostrozhskaiaⁿ; Prochaska, Hetman Stanisiaw Zolkiewski', Kot, Georges Niemirycz-, Krypiakevych, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Dobrowolska, Miodosc Jerzego ³ Krzysztofa Zbaraskich)-, see Antoni J. [Rolle], “Samuel Laszcz (Kartka z dziejδw swawoli kresowej XVI-XVII w.),” Szkice ³ Opowiadania, series 5 (Cracow-Warsaw, 1887), 37-141; Klemens Dzieduszycki, Jan Herburt. Kasztelan Sanocki. Rys biograficzny (Lviv, 1879); Arkadii Zhukovsky, Petro Mohyla ³ pytannia iednosty tserkov (Paris, 1962) (with a bibliography of earlier biographies); Meletii Solovii, Meletii Smotrytsky iak pysmennyk, 2 parts (Rome-Toronto, 1977-8) (Analecta OSBM 36-7, series 2, section 1, 36-7): Antoni Prochaska, ^uWyhowski, twhrca Unji hadziackiej ³ jego rodzina,” Przewodnik Naukowy ³ Literacki (1920): 18-33, 113-25, 209-21, 305-23, 399-411; Adam Witusik, MlodoSl: Tomasza Zamoyskiego (Lublin, 1977); Mieczyslaw Lepecki, Pan Jakobus Sobieski (Warsaw, 1970); and Leszek Podhorodecki, Stanislaw Koniecpolski ok. 1592-1646 [Warsaw, 1969]. The compilation of a complete list of biographic studies of nobles of the period is necessary for further research on the nobility. The Polski Siownik Biograficzny published in Cracow since 1935 will be of great assistance in this task.

72. Much of the commentary on Islamic, Tatar and Turkish influences in Ukraine was culturally biased and based on various racial theories, in particular Turanianism. Such comments were common in the works of Polish nationalist historians such as Franciszek Rawita-Gawronski, Kozaczyzna Ukrainna w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej do koħca XVIII-go wieku. Zarys polityczno-historyczny (Warsaw, [1923]), but he sought to exclude the nobility, as opposed to the Cossacks and peasants, from racial taints. Art historians and folklorists have been in the forefront of study of Eastern influences. See for example, Biletsky, Ukrainskyi portretnyi zhyvopys and Tadeusz Mankowski, Orient w polskiej kulturze artystycznej (Wroclaw, 1979). Also see Bohdan Baranowski, ZnajomoSt: IVschodu w dawnej Polsce do XVII w. (Lodz, 1950) and Janusz Tazbir, “Les influences Orientales en Pologne aux XVI-XVIII siecles,” La Pologne au XV Congris international des sciences historiques (Wroclaw-Cracow-Gdahsk, 1980), 214-39.

73. For sources on Ukrainian culture, see la. D. Isaievych, Dzherela z istorii Ukrainskoi kultury doby feodalizmu XV-XVIII st. (Kiev, 1972). The best general outline on cultural developments is Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Kulturno-natsionalnyi rukh na Ukraini XVI-XVII st., 2d ed. (n.p., 1919). On language usage, including among the nobility, see Antoine Martel, La langue polonaise dans les pays Ruthenes: Ukraine et Russie Blanche, 1569-1667 (Lille, 1933) (Travaux et memoires de Tuniversite de Lille, Nouvelle serie: Droit et Iettres 20). On schools, see E. N. Medynsky, Bratskie shkoly Ukrainy ³ Belorusi XVI-XVII vv. (Kiev, 1954); K. V. Kharlampovich, Zapadno-russkie pravoslavnye shkoly XVI ³ nachala XVII veka, Otnoshenie ikh ê inoslavnym, religioznoe Obuchenie v nikh ³ zaslugi ikh v dele zashchity pravoslavnoi very ³ tserkvi (Kazan, 1898); J. K. Kochanowski, Dzieje Akademii Zamojskiej (1594-1784) (Cracow, 1899-1900) (Fontes et Commentation Historiam Scholarum Superiorum in Polonia Illustrantes 7) (the unpublished matriculation book of the Academy is in Biblioteka Narodowa [Warsaw], Biblioteka Ordynacyi Zamoyskich MS 1598); Alexander Sydorenko, The Kievan Academy in the Seventeenth Century (Ottawa, 1977) (University of Ottawa Ukrainian Series 1) (with a ∞mplete bibliography of earlier works); and Bronislaw Natohski, ^aSzkolnictwo jezuicke w dobie kontrreformacji,” in Pelc, ed., Wiek XVII, 309-38. On Ukrainian students abroad, see Domet Oljaniyn, “Aus dem Kultur- und Geistesleben der Ukraine. II. Schule und Bildung,” Kyrios 2 (1937): 38-69, 143-57, 265-78, 351-66; D. Blazejowskyj, “Ukrainian and Bielorussian Students in the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide (1627-1846),” Analecta OSBM 9 (14), series 2, section 2 (1974): 202-22; and Ihor Losky, "Ukraintsi na Studiiakh v Nimechchyni v XVI-XVIII st.,” Zapysky Naukovho Iovarystva im. Shevchenka 151 (1931): 99-110. For a discussion of the education of nobles in the commonwealth, see J[udyta] Freylichowna, Ideal wychowawczy szlachty polskiej w XVI ³ poczgtku XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1938) and Stanislaw Lempicki, Dziaialnosc Jana Zamoyskiego na polu Szkolnictwa, 1573-1605 (Cracow, 1921) (Prace Monograficzne z Dziejow Wychowania ³ Szkolnictwa w Polsce 2).

74. St. Sreniowski, Organizacja sejmiku halickiego (Lviv, 1938) (Studja nad Historja Prawa Polskiego imienia Oswalda Balzera 16, no. 3); Stanisiaw Piotrkowski₁ Uchwaly podatkowe sejmiku generainego Wiszehskiego 1572-1772 (Lviv, 1932) (Studja nad Historja Prawa Polskiego imienia Oswalda Balzera 13, no. 4); Antoni Prochaska, “Sejmiki Wiszenskie w czasach trzech elekcyi pojagiellohskich,” Kwartalnik Historyczny 17 (1903): 363-404, 544-95; Tadeusz Kostkiewicz, Dzialalnosc kulturalna sejmiku ruskiego (Lviv, 1939) (Pamietnik Historyczno-Prawny 13, no. 2) and Antoni Prochaska, “Z dziejδw samorzadu ziemi chelmskiej,” Przeglpd Historyczny 6 (1908): 33-49, 155-72, 306-21. On the eastern Ukrainian lands, there is only the introduction to a volume of instructions of the dietines by N. Ivanishev in Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 1, part 2 (Kiev, 1861), xv-lxiv and N. V. Storozhenko, Zapadno-russkie provintsialnye seimiki vo vtoroi polovine XVH veka (Issledovanie po arkhivnomu materialu) (Kiev, 1888). For the function of the dietines in shaping the political culture of the nobility, see the essays by Jerzy Wlodarczyk, “Sejmiki jako szkoia wychowania Obywatelskiego (na przykladzie sejmikδw Sieradzkiego ³ Ieczyckiego),” 69-86, and Leszczyhski, ^uSiedemnastowieczne sejmiki a kultura polityczna szlachty,” 51-68, and in Gierowski, ed. Dzieje kultury politycznej w Polsce.

75. For the dietines of the Ruthenian palatinate, see Akta grodzkie ³ ziemskie z czasbw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z Archiwum tak zwanego Bernardyhskiego [Archiwum Ziemskiegoj we Lwowie, 25 vols. (Lviv, 1868-1935), 20, 24. For the eastern lands see Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii 1, part 2 (Kiev, 1861).

76. On the role of the Diet in forming the political culture of the nobility, see Wladyslaw Czaplinski, ^uRola sejmδw XVII wieku w ksztaltowaniu sie kultury politycznej w Polsce,” in Gierowski, ed. Dzieje kultury politycznej w Polsce, 42-50. For information on published and manuscript “diaries,” see Wladyslaw Konopczyhski, Chronologia sejmbw polskich 1493-1793 (Cracow, 1948) (Archiwum Komisji Historycznej, Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci 4, series 2, no. 3); Henryk Olszewski, ^uNowe materiaiy do Chronologii sejmδw polskich,” Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 9 (1957): 229-58; and Zbigniew Radwahski, ^uUzupeInienie do Chronologii sejmδw polskich,” Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 2 (1949): 449-51. Professor Andrew Pernal of Brandon University is planning to publish the little-utilized, but extremely valuable German language “diaries” of Gdahsk.

77. P. N. Zhukovich, Seimovaia borba pravoslavnogo zapadno-russkogo dvorianstva s tserkovnoi uniei (do 1608) (St. Petersburg, 1901) and Seimovaia borba zapadno-russkogo dvorianstva s tserkovnoi uniei (s 1609), 6 parts (St. Peterburg, 1902-12).

78. [Volumina legum] Prawa, konstytucye ó przywileie Krblewstwa Polskiego, ó Wielkiego Xiestwa Litewskiego. ed. Stanisiaw Konarski, 8 vols. (Warsaw, 1732-82) and Vasyl Bidnov [Vasilii Bednov], Pravoslavnaia tserkov v Polshe ³ Litve po "Volumina Legum" (Katerynoslav, 1908).

79. A listing of the major laws is in Kovalsky, Istochnikovedenie, part 3, 14-19.

80. On office holders in the Ukrainian lands, see Karol Maleczynski, Urzednicy grodzcy ³ ziemscy Iwowscy w Iatach 1352-1783 (Lviv, 1938) (Zabytki Dziejowe, Towarzystwo Naukowe we Lwowie, 6, no. 1); Leon Bialkowski, "Urzgdnicy ziemscy podolscy wieku XVI ³ ρocz. XVII,” Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego we Lwowie 8 (1926-27) [publ. 1928]: 174-80; Maurycy Dzieduszycki, "Starostowie ruscy ³ Iwowscy,” Przewodnik Naukowy ³ Literacki 3 (1875): 428-45; K[azimierz] P[ulaski], "Wojewodowie kijowscy w XV ³ XVI wieku,” Przewodnik Naukowy ³ Literacki 4 (1876): 621-40. Considerable material exists in MSS 493 and 494 collected by J. W. Smoniewski in Biblioteka PAN in Cracow.

81. See Archiwum Glδwne Akt Dawnych (Warsaw), Tak zwana Metryka Litewska VII-I, “Index actorum publicorum albo regestr xiag ó w nich spraw, przywileiδw, dekretδw krδlewskich do woiewδdztw czterech, Kiiowskiego, Woiynskiego, Braclawskiego ó Czerniechowskiego ferowanych ó wydanych z Kancellariey Koronney, poczawszy od roku Pahskiego 1569 at do roku 1673 inclusive za Staraniem, praca ó kosztem wtasnym Urodzonego Stefana Kazimierza Hankiewicza IKM 1673.”

82. For works on the Lithuanian statutes, see Okinshevich, The Law. A recent work that examines the relationship of law and practice in the Ukrainian territories is Oswald P. Backus, “Mortgages, Alienations, and Redemptions. The Rights in Land of the Nobility in Sixteenth Century Lithuanian and Muscovite Law and Practice Compared,” Forschungen zur Osteuropaischen Geschichte 18 (1973): 139-67. For the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Backus concentrates on Volhynia and observes many similarities in the privileges gained by the nobilities of Lithuania and Muscovy.

83. On the Lutske Tribunal, see the articles by M. N. Iasinsky in Chteniia v Istoricheskom Obshchestve Nestora Letopistsa'. "Lutskii tribunal, êàê vysshaia sudebnaia instantsiia dlia Volynskogo, Bratslavskogo ³ Kievskogo voevodstva v poslednei chetverti XVI v.,” 14 (1900), pt. 2: 3-72 and "Materialy dlia istorii Lutskogo tribunala (1578-1589),” 13 (1899), pt. 3: 3-34. The lapsing of the separate tribunal at Lutske was long a matter of particular discontent. See Jablonowski, Zrbdla dziejowe 6, cvii.

84. Zrbdla dziejowe 21 (1894): Wycipgi z Summaryusza aktδw Irybunalskich (for the Kiev and Bratslav palatinates).

85. In particular, Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii and Akta grodzkie ³ ziemskie.

86. Opis aktovnoi knigi Kievskogo tsentralnogo arkhiva oznachennoi po spisku onogo..., publ. Kievskii tsentralnyi arkhiv, 60 vols. (Kiev, 1869-1913). See L. A. Protsenko, "Aktovi knyhy iak dzherelo do vyvchennia Spetsialnykh istorychnykh dystsyplin,” Istorychni dzherela ta ikh Vykorystannia 1 (1964): 52-62.

87. See the articles by Zdzislaw Kaczmarczyk, “Òóð ³ forma panstwa polskiego w okresie demokracji Szlacheckiej,” Odrodzenie w Polsce, 5 vols. (Warsaw, 1955-8) 1: Historia, ed. Stanislaw Arnold, 479-528, and "Oligarchia magnacka w Polsce jako forma panstwa,” VIII Powszechny Zjazd Historykbw Polskich w Krakowie 14-17 wrzesnia 1958, 7 (Warsaw, 1959), 61-76. Also, see Wiadyslaw Czaplinski, ^uRzady Oligarchii w Polsce nowo±ytnej," Przeglpd Historyczny 52 (1961): 445-65.

88. Frank E. Sysyn, ^uUkrainian-Polish Relations in the Seventeenth Century: The Role of National Consciousness and National Conflict in the Khmelnytsky Movement,” in Peter J. Potichnyj, ed., Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present (Edmonton-Toronto, 1980), 58-82. In addition to the literature cited in the article, see Wiadyslaw Czaplifiski, ^uMysl polityczna w dobie kontrreformacji (1573-1655),” Wiek XVIL Kontrreformacja. Barok, ed. Janusz Pelc (Wroclaw, 1970), 39-54; SwojskoSc ³ Cudoziemszczyzna w dziejach kultury polskiej, ed. Zofia Stefanowska (Warsaw, 1973); the sections on Lithuania in Wisner, NajjaSniejsza Rzeczpospolita-, and Tomasz Venclova, ^uMit î poczatku,” Teksty, no. 4 (1974): 104-16.

89. For short-term influences, see Andrzej Kaminski, ^uThe Cossack Experiment in Szlachta Democracy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—The Hadiach (Hadziacz) Union,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 1, no. 2 (1977): 178-97. For long-term influences, see Zenon Kohut, ^uA Gentry Democracy within an Autocracy: The Politics of Hryhorii Poletyka (1723/25-1784),” in Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1979-80): 507-19.