The Union of Lublin (1569)

By the early 16th century, it was evident that the Grand Principality of Lithuania was in a state of decline. In 1522, it lost Chernihiv and Starodub in northeastern Ukraine to Moscow.

Fearful of losing their dominant positions to Polish rivals and worried by increased Catholic influence, the Lithuanian and Ukrainian magnates balked at the idea of complete union with Poland. But the middle and petty nobility of the Grand Principality, resentful of the magnates’ prominence and hoping to gain the broad prerogatives their Polish colleagues enjoyed, supported the Polish position.

Drama and bitterness marked the common deliberations that King Sigismund Augustus called in Lublin in 1569. Unhappy with the course of the negotiations, the magnates of the Grand Principality, led by the Lithuanian Protestant Krzysztof Radziwiłł and the Ukrainian Orthodox Konstantyn Ostrozky, walked out. In response, the Poles, backed by the petty nobles from the provinces of Volhynia, Pidlasia, and Kiev, proclaimed the annexation of these lands to Poland. This forced the recalcitrant magnates back to the bargaining table and on 1 July 1569 the Union of Lublin was concluded.

As a result of the union, a commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was formed that was to have a common, elected king, a common parliament (sejm), and common currency, tolls, and foreign policy.

For the Ukrainians, the Union of Lublin of 1569 was an event of tremendous import. Despite its shortcomings, for two centuries the Grand Principality of Lithuania had provided them with a hospitable environment in which to live. Although they were not independent, the Ukrainian princes did possess extensive control over their social, economic, religious, and cultural affairs. However, as the fate of Galicia (which had come under Polish rule earlier) indicated, once the Ukrainian lands and populace were transferred from Lithuania to Poland, their continued existence as distinctive societies would be put in question.

Between the 14th and 16th centuries the powers that would decide the fate of Ukraine for subsequent centuries came to the fore. Lithuania scored the most impressive initial gains in Ukraine and its rule was the most acceptable to its inhabitants. But the more numerous and aggressive nobility of Poland gradually pushed the Lithuanians from Ukraine by means of military pressure and negotiated settlements, and staked out the land as its primary area of expansion. In the background loomed the other important powers that would affect Ukraine: the rapidly expanding tsardom of Moscow and the Crimean Khanate, which was linked to the all-powerful Ottoman Empire. Under the circumstances, the prospects for Ukrainian self-rule were clearly not promising.

There were, however, a few notable attempts by Ukraine’s regional elites to stand up for local interests. Most noteworthy was Dmytro Detko’s aggrandizement of power in the 1340s in Galicia after the native dynasty died out, the Ukrainian support for Svidrigaillo in the 1430s, and Hlinsky’s anti-Lithuanian uprising of 1508. But foreign, especially Polish, dominance introduced a new phenomenon – assimilation of the Ukrainian elites into the culture of the ruling powers. As they gradually identified with the culture of the dominant Poles, the Ukrainian nobles lost their readiness to defend local interests.