Politics of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Ukrainian lands. The entry of Ukrainian lands into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The struggle of the Cossacks against the Turkish-Tatar aggression
History of Ukraine. Popular science essays Team of authors
The entry of Ukrainian lands into the Commonwealth
The entry of Ukrainian lands into the Commonwealth
A new powerful impetus to the escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Vilna, the situation receives from the moment of resuscitation in the late 50s. Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Grozny) of the course of his grandfather Ivan III to provide the state with access to the Baltic Sea. In the context of solving this problem, at the beginning of 1558, the first Russian tsar began a war with his former ally, the Livonian Order.
By the middle of the year, the tsarist troops stood on the shores of the Baltic, and the order was falling apart into separate formations. However, the Grand Master of the Order, having voluntarily ceded significant territories to his neighbors, and also recognizing himself as a vassal of the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund, dragged Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark into the war with Moscow.
For Vilna, the initial period of the Livonian War was unsuccessful: on February 15, 1563, the 60,000-strong Russian army managed to capture the well-fortified Polotsk, and then occupy the Belarusian lands in the Dvina region. The threat of significant territorial losses hung over the principality, and in these conditions the issue of military assistance to Poland becomes relevant. Thus, the idea of unification with the Crown and, as a result, the democratization of the state structure of the Grand Duchy according to Polish models, which has long been popular among the chivalry, receives a powerful foreign policy impulse.
Reacting to the demands of the nobility to turn a personal union with the Polish Crown into a real union, Sigismund II August in 1563-1568. convened six diets, which debated various aspects of the upcoming unification of states.
The struggle for the expansion of the political rights of the chivalry of the Grand Duchy finds its embodiment in a series of battles held during 1564-1565. land reforms. The beginning of the reforms was laid by the privilege of the Grand Duke Sigismund I the Old in 1563, who proclaimed the elimination of restrictions on the rights of the Orthodox in comparison with the Catholics, introduced by the Gorodel Act of 1413 (in practice, this restriction did not work, the clearest confirmation of which is the long register of state and military positions of the Orthodox magnate K. Ostrozhsky - the great hetman of Lithuania, the Trokai governor, the Vilna castellan, the Lutsk headman, the governor of Vinnitsa and Bratslav, etc.). The following year, under pressure from the gentry, the magnates renounced their special status in the course of legal proceedings and were formally equalized in rights with the rest of the gentry community. General elective gentry courts were introduced in the principality. According to the Vilna Privilege of 1565, the entire territory of the principality was divided into 30 povets, in which zemstvo and city courts were organized. The nobility of one or another povet was under the jurisdiction only of an elected zemstvo court, completely independent of the grand duke's power. The competence of the city (or castle) court, headed by representatives of the grand ducal authorities - the governor and the headman, included cases related to robbery, robbery, and arson.
Sigismund II August. Portrait by J. Matejko. 19th century
Following the judicial reform in 1566, a reform of the political and administrative structure was implemented. Kiev, Volyn and Bratslav provinces were formed on the lands of Ukraine-Rus. Ownership of land within the limits of one or another county was the basis for participation in meetings of local sejmiks, through which the gentry was directly involved in government.
A series of reforms carried out culminated in the proclamation of the Second Lithuanian Statute, which consolidated the success of the gentry in turning it into a full-fledged political people, as well as constituting the formation of a class gentry power. The statute introduced fundamental changes in the political structure of the state. The Ballroom Diet, which from then on became bicameral, received the prerogatives of the legislature. The Senate, as the heir to the princely council, was formed from among the bishops, governors, castellans, as well as the highest government posts. The chamber of ambassadors consisted of delegates elected by the gentry community at meetings of the district sejmiks. The principle of electing the Grand Duke by free votes of representatives of all estates was legally fixed.
In addition, there is an accelerated convergence of the economic systems of the Grand Duchy and the Crown. The agrarian reform carried out in the Principality in accordance with the “Charters for portage” of Sigismund II August 1557, which resulted in the measurement and redistribution of land, first in the grand ducal, and later in private estates, created the conditions for the formation of a farm management system in the state.
The reforms carried out and the adopted new edition of the Lithuanian Statute turned the Grand Duchy into one of the most developed European gentry democracies. At the same time, the reforms paved the way for the unification of the Principality with the Polish Crown. The final decision on the issue of the unification of states was to be made by the general diet convened in Lublin at the beginning of 1569.
The opponents of the union were Lithuanian and Russian magnates who did not want to lose their monopoly rights to govern the state. The royal party also showed a certain passivity, considering the Grand Duchy as its inherited fiefdom.
The ideological struggle between supporters and opponents of a real union found its continuation in the course of the Lublin Diet. In response to the proposals put forward by the Polish side for a unitary structure of the united state, magnates from Lithuania first organized separate meetings of the Seimas, and soon left Lublin altogether. The demarche of the Lithuanian side cost them dearly. In their absence, on March 5, 1569, the Seim adopted a resolution on the incorporation (inclusion into its composition) of Podlasie and Volyn, a little later - the Kyiv and Bratslav provinces.
The Lithuanian aristocracy, outraged by the perfidy of the Poles, was at first ready to declare war on the Crown, but under pressure from its own gentry, it was forced to return to Lublin. The debate at the Sejm was continued, and their result was a compromise solution, providing for a combination in the union act of both unitary and federal principles. In particular, the preamble of the document stated that the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are merging into one "inseparable whole" and from two states and peoples are turning into "one common Commonwealth", "one people", led by the King of Poland, who is at the same time Grand Duke of Lithuania. The supreme legislative body of the state became the General Sejm, the venue of which was determined by Warsaw. The united state pursued a unified foreign policy. The gentry received equal rights throughout the state. At the same time, the Grand Duchy retained its name and the title of its ruler, its own system of state positions, separate armed forces and financial system. The territory of the principality had its own set of laws. The ballroom Sejm adopted separate laws for the Crown of Poland, separately for the Principality of Lithuania. The magnates and gentry of the Crown were allowed to acquire land in the Principality, and vice versa.
Prince Vasily-Konstantin Ostrozhsky. 16th century portrait
Unlike the Lithuanian elite, the nobility of the Russian lands took a rather passive position in the Seimas, which negatively affected the status of the Ukrainian lands in the federal state, the titular nations of which were proclaimed by the Polish and Lithuanian elite. Representatives of the Russian chivalry did not voice their vision of the structure of the new state formation at the Sejm. The princes, on the other hand, mainly defended freedom of religion and the inviolability of local customs.
The Union of Lublin in 1569, which affected various spheres of the life of Russia-Ukraine, was an important milestone in Ukrainian history. However, as the researchers rightly point out, contemporaries of the union did not observe any serious changes in the social and power arrangement of the Ukrainian lands that became part of the Polish Koropa. In the Kiev region and Volhynia, the powerful princely dynasties of the Ostrozhsky, Zaslavsky, Zbarazhsky, Vyshnevetsky remained the real rulers, as before. Having formally lost their hereditary right to seats in the Senate, the princes returned to the highest legislative chamber as governors and castellans of the Kyiv, Volyn and Bratslav provinces. And owning huge wealth and still retaining power, the princely families of Volhynia from the second half of the 16th century. penetrate into the Left-Bank Kiev region and Bratslav region, actively buying up the lands of the local boyars there, which, according to the Second Lithuanian Statute, received the right to their unlimited alienation.
Kyiv. Tombstone of Prince Vasily-Konstantin Ostrozhsky. 1579
The pan-European economic situation contributes to the intensification of the economic activity of the magnates in the new lands. Its main components were the shortage of Byzantine grain and livestock, which arose as a result of the fall of Constantinople, and the massive influx after the discovery of America and the sea route to India from overseas colonies to the European markets for gold and jewelry. Only in the second half of the 16th century. prices for grain in European markets increased by 3-5 times, and this was a powerful incentive for the accelerated development of commercial agricultural production by magnates and gentry. Huge landed latifundia (farmlands) grew on the new lands, which not only had a powerful economic potential, but also represented autonomous quasi-state formations, both in their place in the structure of state administration and in the extent to which the legislative field of the Commonwealth spread to them.
The gold rush stimulates the economic development of sparsely populated lands on the border with nomadic peoples. At the same time, the influx of the gentry inevitably provokes a conflict with the local population, who mainly owns land on the basis of a loan, which is far from always confirmed by the relevant documentary acts. In addition, the problem of workers is especially acute in the border areas. As a result, the gentry, in relation to the hitherto free or almost free population of the border regions, seeks to introduce measures of non-economic coercion.
The processes of enslavement of the peasantry proceeded at the fastest pace after the adoption in 1588 of the Third Lithuanian Statute in the Western Ukrainian lands - in the Belz, Rus, Podolsk and Volyn provinces, where the duration of the panshchina often reached 5–6 days a week. In the Kiev and Bratslav regions, where state power was weaker and there was always the possibility of moving to undeveloped lands on the border with the Russian state or the Crimean Khanate, compulsory work in favor of the pan was limited to one or two, in extreme cases, three days. Nevertheless, the rapidity of social changes, as well as the possibility of armed resistance or access to free lands, provoked the maximum aggravation of social relations in the region.
Ostrozhskaya "Bible". Ostrog, 1581 Title page
Another important consequence of the Union of Lublin in 1569 stemmed from the fact that it eliminated the border dividing the Ukrainian lands into those that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian-Russian, and the lands of the Polish Crown. Union contributed to the strengthening of migration flows. Their dominant direction is the movement of educated and accustomed to secular ceremonies, but land-poor gentry from Galicia and Western Podolia to the princely courts of the magnates of Volyn, from where they eventually move to the Kiev and Bratslav regions. In a new place, they not only get the opportunity to realize their energy and skill as administrators, but also, thanks to the care of their patrons, join the ranks of local landowners. Together with the Russian gentry of the Western Ukrainian lands, many representatives of gentry corporations and other crown lands rush to the east. This, in turn, complicates the ethnic mosaic of the region, and also provokes a conflict with the local boyar service group.
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In accordance with the Union of Lublin in 1569, most of the Ukrainian lands came under the rule of the Commonwealth. The forcible Polonization of the Ukrainian people began. Polish laws, language, manners and customs were imposed everywhere. The Polish gentry rushed to the vast and fertile regions of Little Russia. The territory of Ukraine was divided into voivodeships headed by Polish governors. Saunas of the city of voronezh all 223 saunas of voronezh.
The power of the Polish magnates and gentry assumed rude forms. The lands that were in the use of peasants, Cossacks, and philistines were captured by Polish magnates and gentry. Corvee reached 5-6 days a week. The peasants were turned into disenfranchised serfs, their property and life itself completely depended on the arbitrariness of the pan. The possessions of the Polish and Ukrainian magnates reached enormous proportions and turned into a state within a state.
The population of the cities was also in a difficult situation. The Polish gentry, in addition to the lands, enjoyed monopolies in mills, breweries, concentrated crafts and trade in their hands.
The Catholic clergy set as their goal the accession of the Orthodox population to the Catholic Church. In 1596, a Church Council was held in Brest, at which a decision was made to unite the churches. The Polish government recognized the resolution of the Uniate Council as legal, the king issued a manifesto on the unification of the churches. Orthodoxy officially ceased to exist. Most of the Orthodox nobility of Ukraine adopted Catholicism and became Polonized. The ban on the Orthodox Church in Ukraine led to the division of Ukrainians into two camps, which marked the beginning of the differences that developed between Western and Eastern Ukrainians.
Thus, the heaviest feudal and national oppression established by the Polish feudal lords was the strongest brake on the economic and cultural development of Ukraine. The fundamental issue of the national existence of the Ukrainian people, the historical necessity for them was the liberation from the yoke of Poland.
In such conditions from the XVI century. The Ukrainian people rose up in a mass liberation struggle against foreign enslavers. Flight was one of the most widespread forms of protest by the peasantry against feudal oppression. They fled to the cities, populated the Dnieper region, the Left-bank Ukraine. They fled south, into the steppe; here the fugitives united in detachments, were engaged in crafts: hunting, fishing, in the border areas the fugitives began to engage in agriculture, crafts, and trade. So the fugitives turned into Cossacks, that is, into free people.
"Cossack" - a word of Turkic origin, means "steppe robber", "free man". (source: Soviet Historical Encyclopedia, edited by E.M. Zhukov, M.-ed. "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1973, vol. 14, page 835).
The first information about the Ukrainian Cossacks dates back to 1480, when, according to the Polish chronicler M. Belsky, they accompanied the Polish army on a campaign against the Crimean Tatars. In the middle of the XVI century. the leader of the Cossacks - the headman Dmitry Vshinevetsky united the Cossacks. The Cossacks founded fortified settlements beyond the Dnieper rapids, which were called the Zaporozhian Sich.
The Zaporizhzhya Sich is a free military fraternity, headed by a kosh ataman. Each Cossack was obliged to carry out military service at his own expense. Anyone who came voluntarily was accepted into the Sich, they did not ask who he was, how and how he had lived before, as long as he was not a Catholic or a Jew. Women were not allowed in the Sich. The Sich was continuously replenished with immigrants from Moscow Russia and the Commonwealth. (source "Overview of Russian history", S.G. Pushkarev, St. Petersburg, 1999, ed. "Lan", p. 368).
Ivan the Terrible and the struggle to strengthen centralized power. Oprichnina
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Concepts and ideas
“More than 50 years ago, a group of students rowed across the country’s rivers to Stalingrad.” This event was followed by the whole country. This feat was given the name "Athletic feat". On the embankment, in memory of this feat, Alexander Sergeevich wanted to make a monument called "In honor of the transition." The date of the transition, 1954, should have been on the monument ...
The general character of the political unification of the Eastern Slavs; autocracy of the Grand Duke until the middle of the 11th century.
The political unification of the Eastern Slavs, which took place at the end of the ninth and in the tenth century, as already indicated in its place, was at first purely external, devoid of internal cohesion. It was, in essence, a conglomeration of numerous urban and rural worlds under the supreme leadership of the Grand Duke of Russia. This connection could with t...
Most of the Ukrainian lands were under the rule of the Polish gentry for more than 220 years. Only part of the Ukrainian Polissya remained with Lithuania, northern Bukovina was held by Moldavia (since 1514 - Turkey). The eastern part of the Carpathian Ukraine after 1526 was in the hands of Austria, the western part was occupied by Transylvania, the Chernihiv-Seversky land was controlled by the Russian state (since 1618 it passed to the Commonwealth).
With the adoption in 1572 by Poland of the so-called Heinrich Articles, the country became the only territory in continental Europe with gentry democracy, an elected king who had strictly limited power powers. Meanwhile, throughout the rest of Europe (excluding England), the role of parliaments was steadily declining, and the power of the absolute monarch was increasing.
The legal regime of Poland after the Union of Lublin gradually spread to the lands where the Ukrainian and Belarusian population lived. After 1569, the last traces of administrative division into Old Russian principalities were destroyed in Ukraine, all Ukrainian lands that became part of the Commonwealth were divided into six voivodeships. Since 1563, both in Poland and Lithuania, the Orthodox gentry received equal rights with the Catholic, in the middle of the 16th century. the term "boyars" disappeared from use. The privileges of the vast majority of nobles were determined by their military service. In Poland, the nobility was distinguished by a high degree of solidarity and was the most powerful in Europe, accounting for 8-10 of the entire population. On the Ukrainian lands, the nobility did not achieve a special status so quickly, and its total number did not exceed 5% of the population.
About 10-15% of the population of Ukrainian lands were urban dwellers, who stood out as a special estate. At that time in Ukraine there were many large, rapidly growing cities. In addition to cities with royal, privately owned and church status, there were cities that had Magdeburg rights. This system of self-government assumed tax immunity, judicial independence, benefits in trade and crafts. The first to receive the Magdeburg right were such cities as Novy Song in 1294, Khust, Tyachiv, Vyshkov - in 1329, Lviv - in 1356, Kyiv - during 1494-1499, etc. At least 400 settlements had it on the territory of Galicia , and in Eastern and Central Ukraine - more than 20.
But only a few cities in Ukraine could use the advantages of the Magdeburg law in full. Most often, it turned out to be limited: Orthodox townspeople could not be part of the town hall administration, there was no land ownership of the inhabitants, they were highly dependent on private traders and royal power, and many natural and other duties remained for the townspeople. It was the townspeople in ethnic terms who were the most motley part of the population of that time.
The majority of the population of Ukraine was the peasantry. - 80% of the population. From 16 Art. the peasants were deprived of the right to sell the land or rent it out on a tax, and in the event of moving to another locality, the gentry had to be paid for the previous privileges and received from him a document granting personal freedom. Back in 1557, in Galicia, Volhynia and Podolia, an agrarian reform was carried out under the name "Charter for Portage". Land suitable for plowing was divided into plots of 19 hectares in Poland, 22 in Lithuania. They were received for use by one, less often - by two peasant families. In order to cultivate the three fields, the drag was divided into three fields. The owner of such a plot had to work two days a week in the gentry's farm, pay a cash and food tax worth 30 groszy, and perform various duties.
In the 16th century in Western Europe, the demand for food products is growing (there was a "price revolution" when, due to the influx of cheap gold and silver from America, the prices of almost all goods rose). Ukrainian lands, especially those that were close to the tributaries of the Vistula, were drawn into the international grain trade, becoming areas of commercial grain farming. The feudal lords forced the peasants to increase their crops. The grown grain was transported by waterways to Gdansk, and then to the countries of Western Europe.
The expansion of trade in grain and other agricultural products prompted the creation of a farm, which provided for the cultivation of landlords' land by dependent peasants. From now on, everything is changing in the economy of the feudal lord. It is being transformed into a plantation, clearly focused on producing as much product for sale as possible at no extra cost. Such estates-plantations in Polish were called "farms". The landowner now needed to really take over all those plots that he had previously given with a calm soul to the full jurisdiction of the peasants, and replace the dues with a reinforced panshchina. With the advent of the "Charter for Portages," the land on which the peasant lived and cultivated was, with all legal clarity, declared landowner's. The peasant worked on the land, but the nobleman owned it. So the peasant was deprived of all rights and finally tied to the land - his position now differed little from that of a slave. Thus, while everywhere in Western Europe serfdom was already dying out, in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, it is being revived in its second edition; and in a particularly exploitative form.
However, the degree of enslavement of the peasantry was not the same in all regions of Ukraine. In the most densely populated western lands, Galicia and Volyn, serfdom prevailed, but was also expressed more cruelly. And in the semi-deserted areas (Carpathians, Podneprovye), landowners lacked labor and were forced to make concessions to the peasants. Serfdom was virtually unknown there.
The accession of Ukraine (as a Polish colony) to the new European civilization brought not only the intensification of production, access to Western markets, but also the growth of social tension, the Polonization of the Ukrainian elite. The crisis of the Eastern Christian civilization and the impossibility of perceiving the achievements of the Western Christian-New European system of values turned Ukraine, like Belarus, into peripheral regions of Europe. The situation was aggravated by the opposite civilizational and geopolitical orientation of the ruling and oppressed strata of Ukrainian society.
(second half of the XVI - first half of the XVII century)
After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania lost not only its lands, but also its state significance. But the greatest losses were suffered by the national life and traditions of the Ukrainian people. The last hope for its revival was buried by Ukrainian statehood: the Polish administrative-territorial division, language, and the Catholic faith were spread throughout Ukraine. Until the end of the 16th century. most of the Ukrainian lands found themselves under the rule of the magnates Vyshnevetsky, Zamorsky, Konetspolsky, Tarnovsky.
Basic features of law
If the Polish government succeeded after the Union of Lublin to extend the administrative-territorial system and the activities of state bodies of the Commonwealth to Ukrainian lands, then it was more difficult with law.
Poland did not currently have a single legal system. Neither the Charter of Latsky of 1516, nor the "Articles" of Heinrich of Valois of 1573 solved the problem of law codification. The government created collections that covered previously issued statutes and constitutions, as well as the norms of Polish customary law, whose role in the regulation of social relations was quite significant. Lithuania, and hence the Ukrainian lands, had a fairly developed system of law. With the formation of the Cossack republican system, a peculiar legal system arose in Zaporozhye. The Cossacks did not recognize the operation of the Charters and Magdeburg law on their territory. Justice in Zaporozhye took place in accordance with ancient customs, "verbal law and common sense." The norms of customary law that developed in the Zaporozhian Sich fixed the military-administrative organization of the Cossacks, the work of the judiciary, the procedure for land use, the procedure for concluding individual agreements, types of crimes and punishments. It is safe to say that the Cossack customary law was a people's constitution.
After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Ukrainian lands enter the united state and lose the remnants of autonomy. This led to the subsequent strengthening of social and national-religious oppression. Polish magnates and the Catholic Church plundered Ukrainian lands and enslaved the peasantry. The expansion of Catholicism, which was carried out through the Polish government by the Vatican, attempts to Polonize the Ukrainian people caused a broad socio-political movement, opposition from the Orthodox magnate-noble strata. This opposition was significantly weakened by the betrayal of a part of the Ukrainian gentry and clergy, who converted to the Catholic faith. With the aim of mass catholicization of the Ukrainian people, the Vatican, together with the government of the Commonwealth and the top of the Catholic Church, supported by part of the Orthodox clergy, held a church union in Berest in 1596, which led to the creation of the Uniate Church.
Characteristic of this period was that the people's liberation movement in Ukraine was aimed not only at liberation from national, social and religious oppression, but also at the creation of a new socio-political system.
The period of the Lithuanian-Polish day brought new structural changes in society in Ukraine. First of all, the Ukrainian ruling elite, which became Catholic, especially after the Berestey Church Union of 1596, is taking shape in a new state. Cities get legislation and a system of self-government - the so-called Magdeburg law, which guaranteed the bourgeoisie independence from royal power. Ukrainians adapted to those laws, to the system of government that existed in the West. Awareness of their rights, responsibilities and duties before the law was decisive in the public consciousness of society.
Such a social existence connected the Ukrainian population with Western political and legal culture. It is interesting that the neighboring eastern state - the Moscow kingdom developed in the opposite social direction. As a result of the longer domination of the Mongol-Tatars, its population could not get acquainted with the principles of respect for laws and the fulfillment of certain public duties for a long time. This delayed the formation and development of a proper civil society, a civilized political culture, which manifested itself in the future.
At the same time, it must be said that with the disappearance of the politically conscious Ukrainian elite, which merged with the ruling class of the Commonwealth, the idea of reviving an independent Ukrainian state also disappears.
The main factor in the creation of the state was the Ukrainian Cossacks, which entered the third stage of its existence. A military organization was created in Zaporozhye, which after some time became the basis of Ukrainian statehood. Here the foundations of republican statehood, new principles of legal proceedings, new sources of law are being formed.
The adoption of the Union of Lublin is not enough for the Ukrainian fatal consequences. If in 1569 the position of the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands within Lithuania was tolerable, now the situation has changed radically: the Polish-Lithuanian administration began a widespread attack on the rights of the Ukrainian population. It covered primarily the economic sphere, where the government of the Commonwealth again supported the magnate in every possible way, in whose hands even the king remained a puppet. National, religious and cultural oppression sharply intensified. As the fate of Galicia testified, with the transfer of Ukrainian lands from Lithuania to Poland, the very existence of the Ukrainian as a separate ethnic community was called into question. Historian N. Polovska-Vasilenko noted on this occasion: “From the middle of the 16th century, the situation has changed. Separate episodic cases are replaced by systematic underlining of contempt for the Ukrainian people, for which the term “serfs” is used, and from that peasant speech, peasant faith .. This "clap" faith... the Poles call it "heretical", "schismatic" and in terms of the Ukrainian Orthodox faith is identified with the Ukrainian people".
According to the new administrative-territorial structure, the Ukrainian lands, which were part of Poland, were divided into 6 voivodships: Russian (with a center in Lviv), Belz (Belz), Podolsk (Kamenets), Volyn (Lutsk), Bratslav (Bratslav), Kiev (Kyiv). In 1635, the Chernigov Voivodeship was formed with the center in Chernigov. Each voivodeship had its own sejmiki and sent its deputies to Warsaw for the Sejm. At first, the Lithuanian Statute and the government Ukrainian language were kept in the Kiev region, Bratslav region and Volhynia, but soon they give way to national law and Latin and Polish.
Newly annexed territories differed from each other in economic situation. Volhynia, Northern Kyiv region were considered prosperous, South-Eastern Podolia was less populated and the Left Bank was very devastated. Kanev and Cherkassy were the strongest cities in the south. Pereyaslavshchina began to quickly revive from the Mongol ruins in the second half. XV century. But its prosperity did not last long. The devastating raids of the Crimean Tatars since 1482r. again turned this region into a desert. The Siver region suffered less from nomadic raids. Even when it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, agriculture and various crafts developed here.
In con. 16th century the rapid colonization of Eastern Ukraine began, including the Left Bank, the Middle Poltava region, the lands between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug, Severshchina. Although some Polish historians claim that these areas were inhabited mainly by Masurians, the facts indicate the opposite - Eastern Ukraine was colonized by peasants from Volhynia, Galicia, Kholmshchyna and Podolia. Following the farmers came the magnates and thousands of their hirelings, who captured the richest black soil in the world. Huge latifundia were formed, virtually independent of the Polish crown. These gentlemen had a mercenary army, a repressive administrative apparatus. Until ser. 17th century on the expanses of the left and right banks of the Dnieper, they introduced serfdom No less cruel than in Western Ukrainian lands. The mass settlement of these territories is due to benefits, "settlements" for newcomers for 20 years or more. Oppression of the masses, that is, an increase in labor rent, increased in the XVI - early. 17th century in connection with the demand in Western Europe for Ukrainian bread. A cruel filvarka system was formed, which proved corvée up to 6 days a week. The free people met the introduction of corvée with hostility. Supported by the Cossacks, he was preparing for a decisive fight against the enemy.
It was not easy to live in the Polish state and the Ukrainian philistinism. Despite the provision of cities with points, it was used almost exclusively by Poles and Germans, while the self-government of Ukrainian philistines was significantly limited. In the XV-XVII centuries. they were forced out to separate quarters, they were forbidden to buy or build houses in the city center, to belong to handicraft workshops. Ukrainians could not be elected or appointed burgomasters, carry out Christian processions, even ring bells at funerals. There was a protracted struggle between Ukrainian and Polish artisans, more than once it escalated into bloody fights. Ukrainians sought equal participation in craft workshops.
So, with the formation of the Commonwealth and the transition of Ukrainian lands under the rule of Poland, their situation worsens significantly: economic oppression intensifies, political life is limited, and national traditions and culture decline.