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S.S.R. as part of the Soviet Union, but a very importantminority, chiefly in eastern Galicia, were under Polishrule, until their incorporation in the Ukrainian S.S.R.in the autumn of 1939. A submerged half-millionsouth of the Carpathians in sub-Carpathian Rutheniawere included in Czechoslovakia until the Munichdisruption of September 1938, some months after whichthey were reacquired by Hungary, under whom theyhad always been prior to 1919. Finally, a more considerableminority in Bessarabia and northern Bukovinaformed part of the new Roumania (1919) until theSoviet occupation of these provinces in the summer of1940. Thus on the eve of the German invasion of theU.S.S.R. in 1941 all the Ukrainians in Europe, exceptthe handful in Hungary, were united in one state.The Ukrainians have not only been politically divided,but religiously divided; since the Union of Brest-Litovsk in 1596, when the Uniat church was created,composed of those Orthodox who, while keeping theirrites and liturgy, accepted the Papacy. This arm of theCounter-Reformation and the Jesuits for a time hadgreat success in 'the western lands,' and it served itspurpose as a powerful means of spreading Polish,Catholic influence, of winning over most of the noblesand gentry, and of thus weakening the Ukrainians.Much later, in the course of the last hundred years,however, the Uniat church in eastern Galicia, wherealone its roots were deep, proved to be a boomerangagainst the Poles, for it then became a main centre ofthe Ukrainian nationalist movement.Orthodoxy had sunk very low in' the western lands,' butafter 1620 there was a spirited revival and the Orthodoxfought back with some success. Kiev replaced Lvov as theleading centre of Orthodox life in the Ukraine and enjoyeda century of remarkable intellectual and educational activity,which had in addition marked results upon culturein Muscovy (see pp. 331-333)- Above all, Orthodoxynow became linked up with the social and economicstruggle headed by the Cossacks against Polish rule.The Ukrainian Cossacks developed under the samefronter conditions as the Cossacks in Muscovy (seep—R.H. 225

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