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88 DARIUSZ KOŁODZIEJCZYKthe sixteenth century. Traditionally, only the Ottomans were accused ofblocking these attempts. Sixty years ago, however, Janusz Pajewskidiscovered a report from a Polish Senate meeting at which it had beendecided not to open the Dniester trade because of the fear that this wouldshow the Turkish galleys the way to Poland; it was more prudent to leavethe Ukrainian borderland undeveloped than to tempt the Ottomans. 5 Thesefears are better understood if we remember that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,with a population three times smaller, had a state budget aboutthirty times smaller than that of the Ottoman Empire. 6Demography: The same reasons that led to the underdevelopment ofUkraine under Poland-Lithuania could have enabled its development as abase within the Ottoman Black Sea system for provisioning Constantinople.For the Ottomans to achieve this level of development in the area, however,intensive colonization and settlement were necessary. From the end of thesixteenth century, the demographic pressures within the Ottoman Empireitself declined sharply. It was unlikely that the Ottomans, having failed tocolonize the Hungarian plain and the shores of the Black Sea in Bucak andYedisan, would succeed in colonizing even more remote Podillja.Politics: The third, political, factor should have prevented the Ottomansfrom attacking the Commonwealth in 1672. The attack seemingly contradictedthe Ottomans' traditional northern policy of the sixteenth, seventeenth,and eighteenth centuries. The main concern of this policy was topreserve equilibrium between the main rivals, Poland-Lithuania andMuscovy. In the sixteenth century a balance was maintained indirectly bythe Crimean Tatars. The Tatars had sufficient reason (slaves and cattle) toraid both neighboring territories, but it was safer to do so under the Ottomanumbrella. In the first half of the sixteenth century, most of the Tatar raidswere directed against an actually stronger Poland-Lithuania. During thesecond half of that century, it was Ivan the Terrible who was considered theprimary enemy, and Ottoman relations with Poland were very good in thatperiod. In 1571, the year of the Battle of Lepanto, Poland sold largeamounts of tin—a strategic material—to the Ottomans. In 1579, when5"Około portu na Dniestrze pamiętamy, gdyśmy to byli podali między pany Rady Nasze, żeich wiele było którzy nań zezwalali, ale jak też nie mniej było, którym się zgoła nie podobał.Przeto, że się tym sposobem Turkom droga do ziem naszych ukazuje"; from King ZygmuntAugust's letter to Piotr Zborowski, 7 December 1567, in J. Pajewski, "Legacja PiotraZborowskiego do Turcji w 1568 roku. Materiały do historii stosunków polsko-tureckich zapanowania Zygmunta Augusta," Rocznik Orientalistyczny 12 (1936): 21.6I give some rough estimations in D. Kołodziejczyk, "Imperium Osmańskie w XVIwieku—kilka uwag o potencjale demograficznym i gospodarczym," Przegląd Historyczny 78,no. 3(1987): 375-94.