The Bells of Klevan′: Was the Polish-Lithuanian Rule in Rus′ a Form of Colonial Oppression?

By Tomasz Hen-Konarski Klevan′ is a small town not far from Rivne. In the late eighteenth century, Klevan′ lay within the borders of the Volhynian Palatinate in Poland-Lithuania. It was a private property of the Princes Chortoryis′kyi (Czartoryski in Polish), an old Lithuanian-Ruthenian family that had become one of the most powerful houses of the eighteenth-century Commonwealth. Spending most of their time in Warsaw or in countryside palaces in more convenient locations, the owners of Kleva...