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466 FRANK E. SYSYNhow easily the Commonwealth's administration could be paralyzed bynobiliar liberty.The attitudes expressed in the "Discourse" marked the end of thetolerant, multireligious, and multinational Commonwealth in whichthe Orthodox and Ruthenian traditions could take full part. TheDiscourser saw his fatherland and republic exclusively as Catholic andPolish. The triumph of these new attitudes brought the Commonwealthto disaster in the Ukraine, and their enduring potency made theCommonwealth a very different society at the end of the seventeenthcentury than it had been in the sixteenth. The assimilation of theRuthenian elite and the weakness of Ruthenian political traditionsmade the ideological shift possible, but the transition was far fromsmooth. The "Discourse" reflects a moment when pressure was buildingagainst those who persistently resisted the process. As late as the1640s some Ruthenian Orthodox nobles insisted that the SarmatianRuthenian nobles had freely joined the Commonwealth and wereequals of the Sarmatian Poles. 62 This variant of Sarmatian theory hadserved to unite diverse lands and peoples into a pluralistic Commonwealth.The Discourser does not mention Sarmatism, but intrinsic tohis discussion of the nobility and the fatherland is the new, narrowSarmatism of the militantly Polish-Catholic nobility that was totriumph in the second half of the century.The Discourser depicted the Khmel'nyts'kyi revolt as a battle ofPoles, Catholics, and nobles against Ruthenians, Orthodox, and commoners,particularly Cossacks and peasants. He gave characterizationsof the constituency of each camp, yet neither camp approached hisideal concept of it. The Discourser, like any effective political polemicist,chose not to delve into the complexities of the situation. Inreading his text, or any other contemporary account of the revolt, caremust be taken to distinguish how the prism of political culture andverbal convention shaped the portrayal of the revolt. The "Discourse"is but one entrée into the world of the adversaries who confrontedeach other in 1648. The examination of other political works, historicalwritings, and correspondence will also enrich our understanding oftheir concepts, conventions, values, and programs.Harvard University62This view was expressed by Adam Kysil in a speech delivered at the Diet of1641. Part of this speech is published in S. Golubev, Kievskii mitropolit PetrMogiła, 2, pt. 2: 153^54. Views on the free union are contained in the pamphlet,"Supplikata . . . ," republished in Z dziejów Ukrainy, pp. 99-111 (especiallyp. 101).