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REGIONALISM AND POLITICAL THOUGHT 175The text published as an appendix here (pp. 186-190) is an elaborateand polished exposition of regionalist sentiments presented at thenational Diet by one of the best-known orators of the seventeenthcenturyCommonwealth, Adam Kysil. Kysil served as the de facto layleader of the "Ruthenian nation" in the Commonwealth. As theleading noble of Ruthenian descent to fight for the Eastern church hewas called the "head of Rus'." His greatest importance for the Commonwealthwas during the Khmel'nyts'kyi revolt of 1648, when hesought to mediate between the government and the Cossack leader.But from the 1620s to 1648 his career focused on the affairs of theUkrainian lands — Cossack rebellions, controversies over the Easternchurch, military commissions and campaigns, and the protection ofregional privileges. He was above all a parliamentarian, respected as aspokesman for nobles of the incorporation lands, particularly for theirRuthenian inhabitants. 19Kysil's opinions are expressed in a votum he delivered before theDiet. He must have taken great care in composing it, for a votum was apublic statement by which the rhetoric-conscious republic judged adelegate or senator as a statesman. 20In addition, a votum usuallycirculated in numerous copies, so that the speaker was obliged toformulate his statements carefully, with an eye to their potentialimpact on the nobles of the Commonwealth. And when Kysil presentedhis defense of regional rights to the Diet, he addressed an issuethat also had immediate implications for his own career.The Chernihiv palatinate created in 1635 was considered to be arestoration of lands alienated since the early sixteenth century, whenLithuania had lost them to Muscovy. The new palatinate was grantedthe privileges of the Kiev palatinate. Yet when Kysil was appointedUchebnoeposobie (Dnipropetrovs'k, 1978), pp. 14-19. On the Luts'k tribunal, seethe articles by M. N. Iasinskii, in Chteniia ν Istoricheskom obshchestve Nestoraletopistsa: "Lutskii tribunal как vysshaia sudebnaia instantsiia dlia Volynskogo,Bratslavskogo і Kievskogo voevodstva ν poslednei chetverti XVI v.," 14 (1900),pt. 2: 3-72; and "Materiały dlia istorii Lutskogo tribunala (1578-1589)," 13 (1899),pt. 3: 3-34.19On Adam Kysil, see my doctoral thesis, "Adam Kysil, Statesman of Poland-Lithuania: A Case Study in the Commonwealth's Rule of the Ukraine" (HarvardUniversity, 1976).20On the importance of public speeches in the political life of the Commonwealth,see Władysław Czapliński, "Wybór posła w dawnej Polsce," in hisDawne czasy: Opowiadania i szkice historyczne z XVII wieku (Wrocław, 1957),pp. 227-29.