Polypa itself was small, and therefore the Poles wanted to take advantage of the Lithuanian lands, but this could not be done right away, since Lithuania was a separate principality and was governed by its own custom and law; but soon the great princes of Lithuania, they are also the kings of Poland, began to establish more political orders in Lithuania and Rus'.
In Poland itself, the order was such that the country was actually ruled not by the king, but by the gentry (nobility).
It has already been said that many Russian princes with their squads fled from the Tatars to the west, and therefore to Poland; the warriors subsequently turned into boyars in Rus', and in Poland into the gentry, and they became so strong here that the king was forced to act according to their wishes, moreover, the gentry themselves chose the kings with the help of the Sejm.
The Sejm was the name given to the assembly of elected representatives of the gentry; Only the most powerful and wealthy got into the Sejm ra from her; The Sejm issued laws and, of course, laws that were convenient and desirable for the gentry (gentry).
Thanks to the Sejm, the lords received the exclusive right to own serfs, build fortresses, cast cannons, and execute mortally their slaves (serfs); Many magnates (noble gentlemen) were so rich that their estates were palaces, armed as fortresses with cannons and guarded by their own troops, “banners,” recruited from poor nobles, etc. teams of “zholners” - cavalry recruited from Russians, but dressed according to the German model.
The magnates did not recognize anyone’s authority, not even the king, and did whatever they wanted in their lands.
It has already been said that the Poles looked with envy at the rich lands of the Principality of Lithuania, wanting to take them into their own hands and establish their own rules there.
The first thing that had to be done for this was to destroy the Principality of Lithuania as a separate state; Despite the opposition of many Russian nobles, who understood what the Poles were trying to achieve, in 1569, with the consent of the king, a political ear was introduced at the Lublin Sejm, i.e. uniting Wormwood and the Principality of Lithuania into one state, with the condition, however, that Lithuania and Rus' will unite with Poland, “as equals with equals and free with free.”
Поляки обманули; The Lublin Usha was the first step towards the Polishing of Lithuania and Rus'; the Polish gentry began to move to Ukraine, where they settled on lands begged from the king, distributed to them as a reward for their service; Lithuanian and Russian nobles, wanting to gain the rights of the gentry and be equal to them in everything. began to convert to Catholicism. This was partly facilitated by the fact that all the schools in which the children of the nobles studied were taken over by Catholic monks and in various ways seduced the young men into converts.
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quantity; The children of nobles who converted to Catholicism had already become real nobles, they were drawn to the Poles, and soon such Russian nobles could not be distinguished from the native Poles.
All the simple Russian people remained unshakable in their faith and the language of their fathers, and nothing could force them to convert to Catholicism and speak Polish.
Little by little, Polish customs began to take root in Ukraine, including serfdom; Not even a few dozen years had passed before the Russian people saw themselves in the most bitter bondage; the difference in the expression and language of pan and clap destroyed the previous closeness between them, they became alien to each other.
The pan-Catholic, living off his claps, did not feel sorry for them as “schismatics” (heretics), squeezed all the juice out of them and called them nothing other than “cattle,” that is, cattle.
The life of the peasants was hard and bitter for the lord, especially in the tobochka Ukraine (right bank), and therefore many began to kill them to the east and to the Niz, where, unless they were intercepted on the roads, they turned into free Cossacks.
“Cossack” in Tatar means a tramp, a rider, a free warrior; this name appeared a long time ago, it was the name given to free residents of the left bank of Ukraine who swam down the Dneir for fish and then sold it in Yuev and other cities.
Since the annexation of Rus' to Poland, these brave souls began to be recruited as elders from royal towns and volosts, or they themselves gathered into gangs and chose their own leaders. Fishing in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, in the vicinity of the Tatars, often ended in bloody skirmishes with them, and therefore these fishermen at the same time had to be warriors, which is why they began to be called Cossacks.