Catholicization among the Ruthenian nobility and assimilation processes in the Ukraine during the years 1569-1648 / Henryk Litwin.

The question of assimilation of Ruthenians within the Polish Commonwealth of the Gentry has been raised by Polish and Ukrainian historians on many occasions. For many years analysis was outweighed by interpretation in such discussions. On the one hand Karol Szajnocha, in a style characteristic both of his own approach and of the epoch in which he was writing, maintained that "with mutual attraction and mutual goodwill Ruthenia Polonized. Like two fraternal roots of the same tree, the Ruthenian and Lach (Polish) elements tended towards each other and intertwined, combining forces to give birth to one enormous tree, one powerful nation".1 While on the other hand Wiaczesław Lipiński announced despondently that "religious union dressed in Polish garb, and politico-cultural assimilation of even the most recalcitrant members of the Ruthenian nobility, gradually led to the ultimate annihilation of Ruthenia as it then was".2 Such categorical verdicts concerning the consequences of a process, the course of which has never been studied in its entirety, also escaped the pens of other historians from the two nations — even the most eminent of them, such as M. Hrushevsky or A. Jabłonowski. At the same time, however, monographs and other contributions emerged, whose findings added to, and are still adding to, our knowledge concerning "how Ruthenia Polonized". The systemizing of such information relating to political consciousness, social structure, education,