3. The Ukrainian lands making part of the Great Lithuanian Principality and of other States

The flow and timing of events worked to Ukraine's disadvantage in the 14th century. Precisely at the time when it was sinking to a political, economic, and cultural low point, Ukraine's neighbors - Lithuania, Poland, and Muscovy were on rise.

In 1340, the last prince of Halicia-Volyn died without leaving a successor. There began a struggle for mastery over the principality, which involved Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and the local nobles, called boyars. After changing hands several times, Halicia was finally placed under the rule of Polish kings in 1387, while Volyn entered the sphere of influence of Lithuania. Under Poland, Halicia retained a separate administrative identity, its own laws (not replaced by Polish law until 1434), and its own Orthodox religion, although Catholicism enjoyed the support of the state. Volyn and the principalities in the east — Kyiv, Pereyaslav, Chernihiv, and Novhorod-Siverskyi - were gradually forced to recognize the authority of the Grand Prince of Lithuania, a major power that arose in the northeastern portion of old Rus. The Lithuanians, who were descended from the Baits, gradually established very close family and military links with the princes of Rus, and were also increasingly assimilated to the Orthodox religion and the Rus, that is Slavonic, language.

One ought not to imagine the Lithuanian takeover of Ukrainian lands in terms of a violent invasion by hordes of fierce foreigners. Actually penetration, co-option, and annexation are more appropriate descriptions of the manner in which the goal-oriented Lithuanian dynasty extended its hold over the Slavic principalities. Frequently, Lithuanian forces were welcomed as they advanced into Ukraine. When fighting did occur, it was usually directed against the Golden Horde. Nonetheless, there is general agreement on the major reasons for the rapid and easy successes.

First and foremost, for the Ukrainians, especially those in the Dnieper region, the overlordship of the Lithuanians was preferable to the pitiless, exploitive rule of the Golden Horde. Secondly, because they were too few to control their vast acquisitions - most of the Grand Principality of Lithuania consisted of Ukrainian lands - the Lithuanians co-opted local Ukrainian nobles and allowed them to rise to the highest levels of government. This policy greatly encouraged the Ukrainian elite to join the Lithuanian "bandwagon". Finally, unlike the Tatars of the Golden Horde, the Lithuanians were not perceived 'as being completely alien. Still pagan and culturally underdeveloped when they expanded into Byelorussia and Ukraine, their elite quickly fell under the cultural influence of their Slavic subjects. Numerous princes of Gediminas's dynasty adopted Orthodoxy. Ruthenian (Ukrainian/Byelorussia), the language of the great majority ol° the principality's population, became the official language of government. Always careful to respect local customs, the Lithuanians often proclaimed: "We do not change the old. nor do we bring in the new".

So thoroughly did the Lithuanian rulers adapt to the local conditions in Byelorussia and Ukraine that within a generation or two they looked, spoke, and acted much like their Riurikid predecessors. Indeed, they came to view their expansion as a mission "to gather the lands of Rus" and used this rationale long before Moscow, their emerging competitor for the Kievan heritage, also adopted it. It was for this reason that the Ukrainian historian M.Hrushevsky argued that the Kyivan traditions were more completely preserved in the Grand Principality of Lithuania than in Muscovy. Other Ukrainian historians even claimed that the Grand Principality of Lithuania was actually a reconstituted Rus state rather than a foreign entity that engulfed Ukraine.

Despite the Lithuanians' impressive gains in Ukraine, it was Polish expansion that would exert the more lasting and extensive impact on the Ukrainians. The man who initiated it was Kasimir the Great (1310-1370), the restorer of the medieval Polish monarchy. In expanding eastward, the king had support from three sources: the magnates of southeastern Poland, who expected to extend their landholdings into the neighboring Byelorussian and Ukrainian lands; the Catholic Church, which was eager to acquire new converts; and the rich burghers of Krakow who hoped to gain control of the important Galician trade routes. Only nine days after the death of Boleslav (the principality's last independent ruler) in April 1340, the Polish king moved into Halicia. He did so under the pretext of protecting the Catholics of the land, who were mostly German burghers. But it was obvious that Kasimir had been planning the move for some time, for in 1339 he signed a treaty with Louis of Hungary, which stipulated that the two kings would cooperate in the conquest of Ukraine.

The aggrandizement of Ukrainian lands did not proceed as smoothly for the Poles as it did for the Lithuanians, however. No sooner had Kasimir returned to Poland than the willful Galician boyars, led by Dmytro Detko, asserted their rule over the land. Unable at the time to launch another incursion, Kasimir was forced to recognize Detko as the effective ruler of Halicia. In return, the latter recognized, in a perfunctory and limited fashion, the Polish king as his overlord. An even greater threat to Polish aspirations in Halicia and Volyn were the Lithuanians. Because Lubart, the son of Gediminas, was the son-in-law of the deceased Galician ruler, Boleslav, the Volynian boyars recognized the young Lithuanian prince as their sovereign in 1340. Thus, when Detko died in 1344, the stage was set for a confrontation between the Poles and Lithuanians for control over Volyn and Halicia.

For more than two decades, the Poles, aided by the Hungarians, fought the Lithuanians, with whom most of the Ukrainians sided, for control over Halicia and Volyn. Unlike the interprincely conflicts that were familiar to the inhabitants of the old Rus lands, this one had a new and disturbing dimension. Proclaiming themselves to be "the buffer of Christianity," the Poles, partly from conviction and partly in order to gain papal support, represented their push to the east as a crusade against the heathen Lithuanians and the schismatic Orthodox Ukrainians. This view of their non-Catholic enemies as being morally and culturally inferior boded ill for future relations between the Poles and Ukrainians.

In 1349, after a particularly successful campaign, Kasimir gained control of Halicia and part of Volyn. Finally, in 1366, the war ended with the Poles occupying all of Halicia and a small part of Volyn. The rest of Volyn remained in Lithuanian hands. But even at this point the Polish grip on their huge Ukrainian acquisitions - consisting of about 200,000 people and approximately 52,000 sq. km, an increase of close to 50% in the holdings of the Polish crown - was not secure. In the above mentioned pact with Louis of Hungary, Kasimir had agreed that if he should die without a male heir, the crown of Poland and the Ukrainian lands would revert to Louis. In 1370, Kasimir died, leaving four daughters but no son. Now the Hungarians moved into Halicia. Louis appointed Wladyslaw Opalinski, a trusted vassal, as his viceroy and installed Hungarian officials throughout Halicia. However, what the Poles lost through dynastic arrangements, they regained in the same way. In 1387, two years after she became the queen of Poland, Jadwiga, the daughter of Louis of Hungary, finally and definitely annexed Halicia to the holdings of the Polish crown.

By the mid 15th century, when Galicia was reorganized into Rus wojewodstwo or province of the Polish kingdom and Latin became the official language of the land, there were few remainders left of Halytsk principality.

The Polish acquisition of Ukrainian lands and subjects was a crucial turning point in the history of both peoples. For the Poles, it meant a commitment to an eastern rather than the previously dominant western orientation, a shift that carried with it far-reaching political, cultural, and socioeconomic ramifications. For Ukrainians, the impact went far beyond the replacement of native rulers by foreigners: it led to the subordination of Ukrainians to another people of a different religion and culture. Despite certain positive effects produced by this symbiosis, eventually it evolved into a bitter religious, social, and ethnic conflict that lasted for about 600 years and permeated all aspects of life in Ukraine.

Once the issue of Halicia was settled, the political leaders of Poland and Lithuania realized that they shared important common interests. Both countries were threatened by the aggressive designs of the Teutonic Order, which controlled the Baltic coast. Especially Lithuania, strained to the limit by its expansion to the east, was in no position to confront the Germans in the north. To make matters worse, Moscow, growing rapidly in power and prestige, posed a threat in the east. Meanwhile, the Poles, dissatisfied with their dynastic connections with Hungary and eager to gain access to the other Ukrainian lands, were looking for new options. At this point the magnates of southeastern Poland proposed a striking idea: a union of Poland and Lithuania to be concluded by means of a marriage between their Queen Jadwiga and Jagiello (Jogailo in Lithuanian), the new Grand Prince of Lithuania.

In 1385, in a small Byelorussian town, the two sides concluded the Union of Krevo. In return for the hand of Jadwiga and, perhaps more appealing, the title of king of Poland, Jagiello agreed, among other conditions, to the acceptance of Catholicism for himself and the Lithuanians and to attach "for all eternity" his Lithuanian and Ukrainian lands to the crown of Poland.

It seemed, from the formal point of view at least, that in return for the Polish crown, Jagiello had agreed to liquidate the Grand Principality. But no matter what the Polish magnates and Jagiello agreed upon, the Grand Principality was too big and vibrant, its elite too self-confident to allow itself to be absorbed by Poland. Lithuanian and Ukrainian opposition to Polish influence galvanized around Jagiello's talented and ambitious cousin, Vytautas (Vitovt), who, in 1392, forced the king to recognize his de facto control of the Grand Principality. Although Poland and Lithuania remained linked by the person of Jagiello, under Vytautas the Grand Principality retained its separate and independent identity. In fact, on several occasions, Vytautas attempted to sever all links with Poland and to obtain a royal title for himself. Although these attempts failed, they demonstrated very forcefully that the Ukrainian and Lithuanian elite of the Grand Principality was still very much its own master.

For the Ukrainian nobles - the masses hardly mattered politically - the preservation of the autonomy of the Grand Principality was a matter of great importance because unlike the Poles, the Lithuanians treated them as equals.

In the mid 15th century, relations between the Lithuanian and Ukrainian elites took a turn for the worse, especially after the new Grand Prince, Kasimir instituted another series of centralizing reforms. In 1452 Volyn, occupied by a Lithuanian army, was transformed, in accordance with Polish models, into a common province, which was governed by an official of the Grand Pr ince. In 1471, Kyiv and its surrounding territories experienced a similar fate. Despite the fruitless protest of Ukrainians to the effect that prestigious Kyiv should rule itself or, at least, be governed by a prince father than an untitled official, it was evident that the last institutional remainders of Kyivan Rus and of Ukrainian self-rule were quickly disappearing.

Projects

1. Union of Krevo and its consequences.

2. Development of agriculture in Ukraine (X1V-XV century).

Quizzes