How and why did Polish rule over the Ukraine "downwardly deviate" from Lithuanian rule?

Question

In the Middle Ages, "Lithuania" ruled over not only the modern Lithuania, but also modern Belarus and large parts of the modern western Ukraine. The inhabitants of these "Ukrainian" territories seemed to accept Lithuanian rule for over two centuries without problems.

But in the 17th century, Poland (Lithuania's partner in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) started taking over Ukrainian affairs. This led to the revolt of the Cossacks and other Ukrainians such as Bogdan Kmelnytsky mid-century.

My understanding is that that Poles were far less benevolent to the Ukrainians than the Lithuanians. The questions are, in what ways, and why? That is, why did Polish nobles "stir the pot" when Lithuanian rulers had "pacified" the region for over two centuries? (For instance, the Kmelnytsky article refers to a "Vilius (Lithuanina) panagyric" praising him.)

Answer 1

First of all the sentence:

"Ukrainiains seemed to accept Lithuanian rule for over two centuries"

is an anachronism. There was no "Ukrainians" in the period you are talking about. Neither any "Belorussians" existed. What later became "Ukrainians" and "Belorussians" were descendants of that part of the population which was Orthodox by religion.

After the conquest of Rus principatities by the Mongols, this orthodox part of the population found itself partially in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and partially in the Kingdom of Poland.

I recall that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, until it united with Poland in 1385 was not a christian state. This was the last pagan state in Europe. In the sense that the Grand Duke himself and a large portion of the population were pagans. They lived in the same state with Orthodox population, which probably made a majority, but this is not exactly known.

The kingdom of Poland was officially Catholic, but also had a large part of the Orthodox population. The union between Poland and the Grand Duchy begins in 1385 as a dynastic union. The Grand Duke baptized, married the Polish queen, their realms were loosely united, and strong efforts were made to convert the whole population to Catholicism. As one can expect, they succeeded with the pagan part of the population more than with the Orthodox part. With years the union became closer and closer, until at some point it was almost complete and the new state was called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569).

The state had a high degree of religious toleration (more than anywhere in Europe at that time, I suppose). Most of the ruling elite was Catholic, but there was a large Orthodox population, as well as Muslim, Jewish etc. Of course there were all sorts of frictions between confessions and people did not enjoy "equal rights" in the modern sense, but interests of minorities were protected by law. We can find several Orthodox among the highest state officials, military commanders, nobility and magnates ("oligarchs"). However it is true that the majority of nobility (zchlachta) was Catholic, and it was profitable for a career to convert to Catholicism.

The frictions apparently increased at the time of reformation. Gradually the relations between Catholics and Orthodox deteriorated, and this led to a disastrous civil war. Religion was not the only reason of this civil war. Provocation from Moscow also played a role. Moscow Princes suddenly declared themselves the "Sovereigns of all Russias", at the time when most of the "Russias" was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poles never recognized this title.

There was also an uprising of the Orthodox peasantry against landowners (magnates), Cossacs fighting for their privileges, etc., that is a kind of "class struggle".

Now returning to your original question. Did Orthodox people feel better in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than in Poland? I don't know any hard evidence for this. But this is possible.

In general, pagans are more tolerant to other religions than Christians. (Example: Roman empire. While it was pagan it was generally tolerant (of course there were frictions, like everywhere else. But in principle it was tolerant. There was no religious wars at least). After it became Christian, religious wars started, and eventually all other religions were eliminated.

One can conjecture that the same eventually happened in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But this is only a conjecture, I do not know any hard evidence. And the very fact that "Ukrainians accepted Lithuanian rule" as opposite to "Polish rule" has to be proved.

By the way, in XVI century, the most used official language in the Lithuanian part of the state was a kind of old Russian (using Cyrillic). After the unification, it was gradually loosing competition to Polish and German. The reason must be clear.

One more remark. The Civil war led eventually to what Russian historians call the "Re-unification of Russia and Ukraine". This period (immediately after the "re-unification" is called in Ukrainian history the Ruin (collapse, destruction). The result was division of Ukraine into two approximately equal parts, one returned to Poland, another stayed with Russia. Only after the violent partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelath in the end of XVIII century, both parts were united within the Russian empire. Thus I suspect that not all Ukrainians were so unhappy under the Polish rule.

Sources. Most of the sources I used are in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish, so I do not cite them. A good book in English is God's Playground by Norman Davies. The "civil war" that I mentioned is officially called "Khmelnicki uprising". When reading the books and other sources, please take into account that these questions are still hotly debated by nationalist historians and the views of many authors are strongly biased. Especially this applies to Russian and Ukrainian authors.

Answer 2

In XIV century Lithuania viewed it's expansion in different ways than Poland. Lithuania simply didn't have manpower and numbers to conquer new territory and pacify it. The only think Lithuanians did, was changing local ruler to it's own, leaving religion, language and past system intact. Lithuanian dukes often married local Ruthenian princesses. Since they were pagans, they would become orthodox themselves.

Grand Dukes used old Ruthenian language as it's official written language. At the time Lithuanian was only spoken language. At the high of they expansion, when border was 80 km from Warsaw and 120 km from Moscow, Grand Duchy of Lithuania had approximately 1.9m inhabitants (about 450 thousand Lithuanians and about 1.45m Ruthenians. So Lithuanian's were always a minority in it's own empire. But it worked both ways. Lithuanians were protecting Ruthenians from Mongol raids and Polish expansion and Ruthenians were supplying Lithuanian army with men and paying taxes to support that army. Army, that was also needed to hold German expansion east.

Belarussian and Ukrainian languages started to get apart only in XVI century, after Polish Kingdom took away Ukraine from Grand Duchy of Lithuania. You also have to remember, that in XIV century Lithuanians lived in huge parts of present day Belorussia and in the region of Podolia. Slavic people (Krevici, Dragovici) started to expand north into the Baltic peoples lands only in IX century. Only in XII century Moscow's duke conquered last Baltic tribe "Galindai", who lived close to present day Moscow.

So, present day Belorussians are mix of Baltic and Slavic peoples. I would bet that big percentage of their blood is of Baltic origin. In XIV century Lithuanians fought long war with Poland over the Ukraine (Dukes Liubartas and Kariotas) after which Poland took over Galicia. Ukrainians felt that Lithuanians are helping them in that war. Lithuanian dukes started settling Podolia, build many cities and castles in Volinia-Podolia regions. I think they saw Lithuanians as protectors rather than conquerors.

Answer 3

First of all, Polish rights to "settle" (the modern) western Ukraine were granted by the Lithuanians to the Poles to induce them to ratify the Union of Lublin, formally the unifying the two countries. This concession was made to protect the "core" Lithuania from such settlement by the more numerous Polish nobles.

Prior to the Union of Lublin, the Lithuanians had ruled their subjects in a relatively "easygoing" fashion (for their time). The Polish nobles, however, were "dedicated" to enserfing and oppressing the local population to squeeze as much wealth from them as possible. They even introduced (often Jewish) "middlemen" for this purpose. Thus, a "regime change" led to a major "rule change."

Answer 4

This led to the revolt of the Cossacks and other Ukrainians..

Cossacks at period of anti-Polish revolts was social class that had collective ownereship over agricultural lands (the same as janizary in Ottoman Empire). You should not think about them as about "nation" or "agricultural laborers".. "Agricultural laborers" could be incorporated into Cossacks more easy then to the Western Gentry, but still Cossacs was a small part of population on theirs territory (but own all lands).

Theirs conflicts with powerfull Polish Szlachta (Polish gentry) - new landholders that come to theirs lands to build new latifundias is natural. This was about who have rights to own the land.

Orthodox vs Catholic - it just ideological dressing of this conflict.

Cossacs met Lithuanians at another time. That was different cossacs and time of another type of relationships (true MiddleAges vassal relationships). Polish in 16 century was much more modern and "capitalistic" then Lithuania in 14.

Answer 5

Well, let me point you in the following direction: one of the possible reasons was the fact, that Lithuanians were of the same faith with Ukrainians (who were not called this way at those times for sure), they were both orthodox people (as "Lithuanians" were the ancestors of the today's Belarus' nation).

The languages were also very close to each other (way more close than to polish or e.g. russian). When Polish Kingdom took the leading role in Commonwealth, they have started a politics aiming to convert population and elites of Lithuania and Ukraine into Catholicism, and also the significant expansion of polish language was taking place.

PS: please excuse my poor English