[Halina]

Hello Yuri,

Thanks a lot for your kind words concerning our knowledge of history. I think Zbyszek's historical analysis is usually very informative and conscious of the manifold intricacies involving historical events. This is especially true in the case of the Ukrainian-Polish relationship both in the past & nowadays.(He started this thread!).

As for myself, I am very fond of history and base my knowledge on the books I've read, or documentaries I've watched, but I am not an expert by any means! Sometimes, lietrature and customs are really handy. Also, the language is a great source of historical information since place -names, proverbs and sayings can teach you a lot about a given nation.

Coming back to the topic, your observations with regard to the religious divisions in the Ukraine come as the first-hand experience and as such are even more valuable. I have read your recent post with a great deal of interest.

It looks like the the Eastern part of the Ukraine suffered a lot from the hands of the Tsarist police. The language of the local population - as a living symbol of their identity, was doomed by the order of the Tsar. Thus the Eastern Ukrainians somehow resigned themselves to the dominance of the Russian colossus. The Western Ukrainians, on the other hand, could breath more freely under the Polish and then the Habsburg rule.
The Poles did not always treat them fairly at all. Yet, the idea of the religious tolerance and multiculturalism within the Commonwealth was very vivid and significant (prior to the Union of Brest).

In this sense, Zbyszek is right quoting the Reformation and the religious toleration of Rzeczpospolita. For example (as related by a Welsh historian - N.Davies in 'God's Playground'), even after the Union of Brest, the purely Orthodox Ruthenian/Ukrainian Prince - Ostrogski married a lady of the Tarnowski Famiy, who was a devout Catholic. Ostrogski's son - Janusz was a Catholic and his two sons were Catholics as well, while the third son became an Orthodox.

To make matters even more mixed-up, one of his daughters married Krzysztof Radziwill, the Calvinist Hetman of Lithuania and the other daughter married an Arian!

Rzeczpospolita was full of different religions (including Islam) and they could peacefully co-exist, or even mingle like in the case of the above marriages. This - one has to admit - was a unique phenomenon at that time (when compared with i.e. the Spanish Inquisition, or the massacres of the Irish Catholics opposing the English Protestantism, or the witch-hunt practised all over Europe).

No, I do not think the Union of Brest was a grand idea since there was a breach of trust between the Crown and the Orthodox Church. The latter finally managed to reassert itself against the Catholic supremacy, but then it became the prey of Muscovy for a change.

All this probably lies at the heart of this subtle 'silk-like' division in the nowadays' Ukraine that you've written about. Do you think the two attitudes also include some specific loyalties, i.e the Eatserners are more pro-Russian and see themselves as a part of the 'Grand Russian tree'?.
Or am I wrong?