Union of Lublin and its conseąuences as viewed by Mikalaj Ulaścyk

The article analyses an essay on the Union of Lublin, written by Mikalaj Ulaścyk (1906-1986) in Moscow in 1950, but never published. In his manuscript, the Belarusian historian argued that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had continued to exist as a separate state after 1569. It enjoyed the same status in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the Kingdom of Poland, so it would be wrong to equal the Commonwealth to Poland. Belarus had not been as totally Polonised as Polish and Russian imperial historiographies used to claim. While the magnates, the nobility and some of the townspeople were indeed Polonised, it was not the case with commoners. Even the Polonised nobility remembered the language of their peasants. In the Stalin epoch the Soviet concept of history presented the Union of Lublin as a stage in the subjugation of Belarus and Ukraine by Polish feudal lords, Catholic expansion and forceful Polonisation. For this reason, an essay expressing such views stood no chance of publication. However, Mikalaj Ulaścyk consistently continued to assert his position on the nature of the 1569 Act of Union and its consequences in his articles and numerous reviews as long as he lived