A Ukrainian Perspective
Between East and West: Polish-Ukrainian Relations
Poland and Ukraine share a common border, a common threat, and a history that stands in the way. For six centuries, Ukrainians lived under Polish rule, and this relationship was never harmonious. A comparison shows that it could have been different: under Lithuanian rule, the Ruthenian chancery language, the Orthodox Church, and the old law remained intact. Under Polish rule, both became obstacles – for the rise of the individual as well as for the existence of the whole. The history begins in 1340, when the Polish crown inherited the Kingdom of Rus', and it only ends in 1939.
What many do not know: The Ukrainian-Polish history is much longer than the Ukrainian-Russian one!
Ruthenians, Russyny, Ukrainians
For six centuries, Ukrainians lived under Polish rule – from 1340 to 1939. What happened during this time contradicts common assumptions at almost every turn: at the beginning, there was no peasant folk, the elite was not expelled, and the uprising that was supposed to liberate Ukraine ultimately led to Poland's downfall.
- This is what the ancestors of today's Ukrainians were called, and this is how they referred to themselves. "Russyny" was the self-designation, "Ruthenians" the Latin and Habsburg official form; both derive from Rus', whose center was Kyiv. It was not until the 19th century that "Ukrainians" became established. The name was never just a label: "Ruthenians" referred to a tribe in a multi-ethnic state, while "Ukrainians" referred to a nation with a claim to its own state. This is why both Warsaw and Moscow stubbornly clung to the old designations.
- Prince Danylo of Halych (after this city, Galicia is named) was crowned king by a papal legate in 1253. His realm, the westernmost successor of Kyivan Rus', maintained relations with Rome, Byzantium, and Hungary. When the dynasty died out in 1340, Poland intervened – and Casimir the Great called himself "King of Poland and Rus'" from then on. He did not dispute the inheritance; he took it. In 1434, the kingdom became the Voivodeship of Ruthenia.
- No edict forced the Ruthenians to abandon their identity. It was enough to tie offices, education, and law to confession and language: Those who wanted to rise became Catholic and Polish. Over two or three generations, the entire leadership class switched sides. Prince Yarema Vyshnevetsky, raised in an Orthodox princely house, whose mother founded Orthodox monasteries, became the fiercest opponent of the Ukrainian uprising of 1648.
- The Polish Republic of Nobles was proud of its freedom – and it was exclusively the freedom of the szlachta. It was built on the unfreedom of millions: three to six days of corvée a week, the landowner also serving as judge over his peasants. In the east, the unfree were almost entirely Orthodox Ruthenians, while the free were almost entirely Catholic Poles. Thus, "lord" and "Pole" became synonymous, as did "peasant" and "Ruthenian."
- The Ruthenians did not want to remain serfs. The boldest fled to where Polish order did not apply: behind the rapids of the Dnipro, to the Cossacks, who organized themselves and elected their leaders. Their mere existence was an indictment, for they proved that a Ruthenian could live differently than on his knees. Uprising followed uprising, each brutally suppressed – until in 1648 the largest popular uprising of the century brought down the rule of the magnates in the east. For Poland, this marked the beginning of a decline that would end a century later in partitions.
- Until 1569, Ruthenian was the chancery language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Orthodox Church and old law remained untouched. Foreign rule alone explains nothing – it depended on which one.
- Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan surveyed the land from 1630 for the Polish crown. His map of 1648 made the name known in Europe – on Parisian maps, the land was henceforth called "Ukraine ou Pays des Cosaques." He dedicated his work to the Polish king with the words that he had significantly contributed to the acquisition of this great province.
- During the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the land fell to Austria. Vienna combined two areas into a crown land that had nothing to do with each other: the old principality of Halych and the south of Little Poland around Krakow. Maria Theresa derived the legal title from the medieval heritage of Rus'. In the Krakow district, there were 62 Greek Catholics among 146,000 inhabitants in 1848 – only the combination of both halves resulted in a Polish majority, and this was the basis for the claim to the whole in 1918.