Religious question as a factor of disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The major purpose of this study is to analyze principles of the multiconfessional society in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I focus mainly on conflicts between elites of the different religion which I analyze through the concept of collective identities. The main target group of the analysis is the highest political elite of the Commonwealth. Through examples of the leading magnates from Lithuania and Ukraine I show the relation between different collective identities, loyalties and political pragmatism in the time of political crisis after the year 1648. My question is, how far different religion influenced formation of the political camps and behaviour of magnates in this age. I conclude that religion was an important factor in forming of the opposition groups and conflicts but one can not see the magnate society strictly devided between confessional groups. The different religion played an important role if it merged with other collective identities such as class, regional or national identity. This was the case of the conflict in Ukraine