POLISH ASCENDANCY. 



201 



historic liigliway between the Black and Baltic Seas. It contained that valuable 

 depression which divides the continent in two halves, and where the sources of the 

 Vistula and its affluents are mingled with those of the Dnieper and Dniester. 



Such a geographical position seemed to secure for Poland and Lithuania the 

 chief rôle amongst the Slav nations. But the elements of the confederacy were 

 of too discordant a character, the efforts of the Polish kings to insure absolute 



Fig. 98. — DiSPLACElIENT OF THE CENTRES OF SlAV PoWEU. 



^ 



Poland 



Russian Confederation Principalities 



anterior to the of the Djaiasty in 



Tatar Invasion of Gedimin 1600. 



(Thirteenth Centuiy). (Fifteenth Centuiy). 



Muscovy 

 in 

 160C. 



Little Eussii 



•when it joined 



Muscovy in 1654. 



supremacy were too violent, and the work of natural assimilation relatively too 

 slow. The political union of Lublin in 1569, followed in 1595 by that of Brest- 

 Litovskiy, uuiting the Greek and Boman Churches, brought about the inevitable 

 clash between the Russian and Polish elements. Through the Catholic religion. 

 Poland was drawn towards the west, while through the Greek religion, introduced 

 from Byzantium, Russia was constituted a world apart. The differences of rites 



