The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

POLISH ASCENDANCY.2C1historic highway between the Black and Baltic Seas. It contained that valuabledepression which divides the continent in two halves, and where the sources of theVistula and its affluents are mingled with those of the Dnieper and Dniester.Such a geographical position seemed to secure for Poland and Lithuania thechief role amongst the Slav nations. But the elements of the confederacy wereof too discordant a character, the efforts of the Polish kings to insure absoluteFig. 9S.— Displacement of the Centres of Slav Power.LofP%PrincipalitiesEus4an Confederationanterior to the of the Pynasl yTatar Invasion of Gedimin(Thirteenth Century). (Fifteenth Century).tofG.Little Russiawhen it joinedMuscovy in 1654.supremacy were too violent, and the work of natural assimilation relatively tooslow. The political union of Lublin in 1569, followed in 1595 by that of Brest-Litovskiy, uniting the Greek and Roman Churches, brought about the inevitableclash between the Russian and Polish elements. Through the Catholic religionPoland was drawn towards the west, while through the Greek religion, introducedfrom Byzantium, Russia was constituted a world apart. The differences of rites