HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

REGIONALISM AND POLITICAL THOUGHT 169tered through institutions of the nobility, which saw itself as thecitizenry of a republic, albeit one in which a king reigned.Customs and practices might have varied slightly from palatinate(województwo) to palatinate, but full rights were assured to anynoble of the Kingdom who acquired land in a given palatinate. It istrue that differences in administration remained between the provincesof Little and Great Poland and that separate "general" or provincialdiets existed until the early seventeenth century. However, it is alsotrue that considerable uniformity and cohesion had developed betweenthese core provinces of the Kingdom. Even Masovia, parts ofwhich remained under local Piast rulers until 1529, was quickly integratedinto the Kingdom, retaining only a remnant of its local law.Greater wellsprings for regionalism remained in the provinces ofRoyal Prussia and Livonia. Royal Prussia, part of the Kingdom,retained its own political institutions and legal codes, reflecting thegreater significance of its cities, even after the Union of Lublin.Differences in social structure were reinforced by differences in languageand culture between Royal Prussia and the Kingdom. (This wasalso true for Livonia, which after 1569 was annexed jointly by theKingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.) Althoughregionalist sentiment existed in the sixteenth-century Kingdom ofPoland, the uniformity of administration and the integration of theelite were remarkably advanced for a realm so vast and so varied inethnic, social, and economic characteristics. 6The Kingdom of Poland's greatest success in political and socialintegration occurred in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The government,laws, and social code of Poland permeated the Grand Duchyafter the two territories were linked by a personal union in 1386. Intime Lithuania had turned into a state with a relatively uniformadministration greatly influenced by the Polish model. By 1569, the6For outlines of regional privileges and a bibliography, see Juliusz Bardach, ed.,Historia państwa i prawa Polski, vol. 2: Od połowy XV wieku do roku 1795, byZdzisław Kaczmarczyk and Bogusław Leśnodorski, 4th ed. (Warsaw, 1972). Onthe incorporation of Royal Prussia, see Wacław Odyniec, Dzieje Prus Królewskich,1454-1772 (Warsaw, 1972), pp. 102-140. For a perceptive and wide-ranging discussionof problems of regionalism, political structure, and political theory in theCommonwealth, see Andrzej Kamiński, "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth andIts Citizens (Was the Commonwealth a Stepmother for Cossacks and Ruthenians?)"in Peter J. Potichnyj, ed., Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present (Edmontonand Toronto, 1980), pp. 32-57.