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SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS ON THE KHMEL'NYTS'KYI UPRISING 461Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (Iarema Vyshnevets'kyi), who had convertedfrom Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism in 1631. The magnate'sconversion had shocked the Orthodox community, and MetropolitanIsai Kopyns'kyi had sent the prince an impassioned call to return to thefaith of his ancestors. 55 Contemporary Ukrainian chronicles describedthe conversion as the transformation of a prince of Ruthenian ancestryinto a Lach. 56 Although ancestry was important to the Discourser indetermining community, he did not define Poles or Ruthenians solelyby descent. One could assimilate by assuming the other community'smajor characteristic — its faith. 57The Discourser's conceptions of Poles and Ruthenians also contain asocial dimension. Roman Catholics and Poles/Lachs are generallyidentified with the nobles and the Commonwealth. Poland and theCommonwealth are represented by the political nation of the nobility.An example is the statement that the Cossacks, since they are"chłopstwo," cannot stand up to the Poles {Polakom). Here, as inother seventeenth-century texts, all nobles in the Commonwealth areidentified as Poles in the political sense. 58Another example is thewarning that concessions to the rebels, who are motivated by inveteratehatred against the Lachs, would only provoke them to ally with theTatars and to revolt again, and that under such circumstances no noblewould want to reside in the Ukraine. Here Lachs clearly means thenobility. Poland, the land of the Lachs that he mentions, is theinheritance of the nobility.But there are also times when "Lach" and "Polak" do not refer to55The letter is published in Lipiński, Z dziejów Ukrainy, pp. 121-23.56See О. A. Bevzo, ed., L'vivs'kyi litopys і Ostroz's'kyi Htopysets': Dzhereloznavchedoslidzhennia (Kiev, 1970), p. 122.57Twice the Discourser deals with communities of descent. He explains Rutheniancharacteristics on the basis of the admixture of Greek blood. He also maintainsthat the Lachs and Ruthenians have the same ancestors and that this shoulddiminish hostility between them. He also comments that the two peoples speak thesame tongue. Although these remarks are not specific enough to label his views aspan-Slavic, they do connote an awareness of Slavic unity. For discussions ofproblems of descent and the Sarmatian myth, see Ulewicz, Sarmacja. Also seeWładysław Serczyk, "Jedność słowiańska w argumentacji rosyjskiej publicystykipolitycznej XVI-XVII w. (Próba systematyzacji)," in Słowianie w dziejachEuropy: Studia historyczne ku uczczeniu 75 rocznicy urodzin i 50-lecia pracynaukowej profesora Henryka Łowmiańskiego (Poznań, 1974), pp. 215-25 (Uniwersytetim. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Wydział Filozoficzno-Historyczny,Seria Historia, 58).58For an example of this usage by a prominent Ruthenian, see Adam Kysil'svotum published in Johannus Lünig, Orationes Procerum Europae . . . (Leipzig,1713), pt. 2, pp. 35-37.