The Formative Phase
All was tranquil, however, in the embrace of Poland. Nobility sought to “Polify” themselves as quickly as possible. The mercantile cities recovered, and centers like Kyiv still had an enviable situation on the trade routes.
A merchant-class began to increase in the cities, as traders earned enough to buy security and status. The aspirations of the poor were partially addressed by work as freemen on the wheatfields. The Ukrainians settled down, for the most part, in their role as a colonized people.The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth sensibly allowed everyone freedom of religion, an important policy for a state that included so much diversity. Historically, invaders of Ukraine had taken three approaches to Eastern Orthodoxy in their conquered territory. One approach was to try and forcibly place all adherents under a more biddable authority in Rome or Moscow. The second, favored by the communists, was to try and destroy the power of the Church altogether. And the third approach, which the Polish-Lithuanian empire took, was to make it worth the while of the Church to toe the line, and keep its adherents in check. Local Christians could do all the religious things they wanted to, in their own way, but the hierarchy of the Church knew that they were also responsible for keeping their members from revolting against the regime.
In the dying days of the Polish Peace, in 1580, Ostroh (West of Kyiv) became a major center of learning. Ostroh had a new-fangled printing press, and produced the first ever whole Bible in Slavonic. The first printing of the Bible in a local language has often been a step toward educating the poor, implanting rebellious thoughts of the equal worth of all humans, and supporting rebellious actions (Sanneh, 2009).
The Ukrainians had a need for guidance into rebellion. Things were about to get very much worse for the descendants of the Northmen.