What Is Ukraine? Many historians believe that the cruel treatment by the Asian Mongols changed the Russian people. They believe that it was from the Mongols that the Russians began their tradition of strong, despotic, and sometimes cruel leadership. In the territory that became Ukraine, the principalities of Halych and Volodymyr-Volynsky emerged soon after the Mongol withdrawal. The two states eventually merged into a single state of Halych-Volodymyr. By the mid-fifteenth century, that state had fallen to Casimir IV of Poland. Meanwhile, the “heartland” of Rus’, including Kiev, was controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Following the marriage of Poland’s Queen Jadwiga to Lithuania’s Grand Duke Wladyslav II Jagiello, most of the Ukrainian territories, with the exception of the eastern sections, were controlled by Lithuania. The region underwent another change in control in 1569. Under the terms of the Union of Lubin, a significant part of Ukraine was placed under the control of the Polish crown. Poland was, and still is, a Catholic, not an Eastern Orthodox, nation. Under pressure from its new rulers, the Rutherian upper class converted to Catholicism as a way of gaining political influence. The vast majority of Ukrainians, especially the peasantry, remained faithful to tradition. They remained loyal to the Eastern Orthodox Church. As the upper class became absorbed into Polish society, the gulf between them and the rest of the population continued to grow. In addition, Poland imposed serfdom on its subjects (wherein the peasantry was bound to the land and forced to work for the rich, upper-class landowners). Runaway serfs, and others, fled to the eastern border of the Polish-controlled territory and established what became a semiautonomous state. The people there became known as Cossacks. As cowboys are to today’s Americans, Cossacks are to Ukrainians. They are remote figures from the past, symbols of freedom and daring. The Cossack “state,” known as Zaporozhian
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