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Regionalism and Political Thought inSeventeenth-Century Ukraine:The NobUity's Grievances at the Diet of 1641FRANK E. SYSYNThe Union of Lublin of 1569, which formed the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth, constituted the most significant instance of a union ofstates through a union of nobilities in early modern Europe. 1 From thesixteenth to the eighteenth century, the nobles of that vast statebecame increasingly homogeneous in language, culture, and religion.Thus, they became Polish nobles not only in the political sense, ascitizens of the Commonwealth, but also in cultural determinants. TheConstitution of the 3rd of May 1791, which abolished the state'sbipartite federal structure, was only in part a reflection of the politicalthinking of the Enlightenment: it also represented the advanced degreeof the homogenization of the Commonwealth's noble citizenry.The assimilation of nobles throughout the Commonwealth to Polishculture, the spread of Roman Catholicism, and the acceptance ofPolish identity did not occur without friction and opposition. Linguisticand cultural assimilation proceeded with relatively minor resistance. 2Religion constituted a more effective barrier against homogeneity, andthe Counter-Reformation only gradually triumphed in the indigenousPolish territories and later in the Orthodox Ruthenian lands, partly inthe form of the Uníate church. 3 The primary opposition to homogeni-1On the Polish-Lithuanian union as a union of nobiliary states, see GottholdRhode, "Staaten-Union und Adelsstaat: Zur Entwicklung von Staatsdenken undStaatsgestaltung in Osteuropa, vor allem in Polen/Litauen, im 16. Jahrhundert,"Zeitschrift für Ostforschung^, no. 2/3 (July 1960): 184-213.2On the spread of the Polish language to the east, see Antoine Martel, La languepolonaise dans les pays Ruthènes: Ukraine et Russie Blanche, 1569-1667 (Lille,1933) (Travaux et mémoires de l'Université de Lille, Nouvelle série, Droit etlettres, 20).3For religious developments, see Ambroise Jobert, De Luther à Mohila: LaPologne dans la crise de la Chrétienté 1517-1648 (Paris, 1974) (Collectionhistorique de l'Institut d'études slaves, 21); Janusz Tazbir, Historia kościoła