The Principles of ancient Rzeczpospolita formation: the medieval Ruthenian dimension

ENThe studying of the medieval migration processes, which have been confined to the margins of historical studies for a long time, has been now substantially updated and opened up new possibilities for revising individual aspects of the historical past of certain countries and peoples. New opportunities to move freely in modern Europe and access to different archives and libraries help us to find and introduce new sources and research methods into scientific circulation as well as radically rethink not only the migration trends of the different strata of the population, but also the issues regarding their collective and individual identification, influence on foreign policy and internal development of these “second birthplaces.” This essay focuses on the analysis of the direct and indirect role of the Ruthenian elites’ in the formation of the medieval sources of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although the establishment of the future republic of the “two peoples” started before the signing of a few complicated agreements between the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the end of the fourteenth century (the Union of Lublin in 1569 completed this process), Lithuania’s influence on the culture and values of the lands of the Piast dynasty and vice versa had been relatively unknown until the fourteenth century. At the same time, the elites of the so-called Руська земля, in the narrow and broad sense of this term, stayed in close contact with their Polish “colleagues” throughout the Middle Ages, which certainly played a significant role in the development of this neighbouring country. [Extract, p. 41]