The Union of Lublin as a resource for forming the concept of the political "Ruthenian people" (1569–1648)

To the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin

Abstract

The article analyzes how the privileges granted to the Volodymyr, Kyiv and Bratslav Voivodeships at the 1569 Lublin sejm contributed to the establishment of these regions’ szlachta’s self-perception as a political nation (with Rus’ as the third member of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth). The article is comprised of the three main parts. In part one, the scholar focuses on the issue she sees as seminal for the discussions at the Lublin sejm regarding the merger of the Ukrainian (Ruthenian) Voivodeships and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Volynian szlachta, which juggernauted the struggle at the sejm, treated the union as a merger where their own rights would be secured and guaranteed by the oath sworn by the king, the Senate, and szlachta ambassadors. This fact highlights the agency of Ukrainian szlachta and its belief that it could negotiate with the Crown szlachta as equals. Representatives of the Crown meanwhile believed that these territories were to be returned as an integral part of the state, and that the local szlachta were to have the same rights accorded to the Crown szlachta; their rights were to be confirmed by uniformly swearing an oath to the king and the Crown. Eventually the Volynians dropped their demand that representatives of the Crown should swear an oath to affirm their rights; in exchange they were allowed to compile a privilege document describing their rights themselves, and the king was to safeguard their rights with an oath. Obviously, the text suggested by the Volynians was edited by the committee created by the other side, resulting in certain contradictions in rhetoric. These clashing expectations regarding the merger, and whether they will be incorporated "with rights" or "into rights", can be traced in the Volynians’ grievances after the Union too. The scholar analyzes Volynian legal practice, which attests to szlachta’s insistence on staunch adherence to two privileges: that Ruthenian (Old Ukrainian) language be used in the justice system and administration, and that the Statute of Lithuania be used as the "local" law for Volynian, Kyiv and Bratslav Voivodeships. She contends that the day-to-day court dealings became the sphere where Ukrainian szlachta perfected the arguments defending their rights and territories ever since the Union of Lublin, and with it their understanding of themselves as a separate political "nation". These arguments will be utilized again in the religious polemic following the Union of Brest (1596). The scholar analyzes how the Lublin privileges contributed to the construction of a territorial and legal notion of the "Ruthenian nation" (inhabiting a certain territory and endowed with unique rights) in the polemical texts by Marcin Broniowski, Zakhariia Kopystenskyi and Meletii Smotrytskyi. This notion posed serious competition to a religion-based model of identity (Ruthenian nation as the Orthodox Christian population). This notion was simultaneously expounded by Ukrainian szlachta on the political scene in the 1620s–1640s. By relying on the privileges granted with the Union of Lublin as the basis for the subjectivity of the Ukrainian voivodeships, the authors of religious treatises and szlachta parliamentarians have developed the notion of a Ruthenian nation as the third component of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, equal to Poles and Lithuanians, by the mid-17th century. To conclude, the scholar offers some of her thoughts regarding future directions in Ukrainian history writing