Abstract:

At the turn of the 16th—17th centuries there is a question of rights, freedoms and self-identification for the Orthodox population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in con-nection with the emergence of Uniatism. Many works of Uniates and Orthodox, addressed to each other, were created after the adoption of the Brest Union in 1596. А polemical literature, generated by the Brest Union, well reflects not only the religious worldview of people of early Modern times, but also the problem of the self-identification, the definition of «our» and «other» community. The famous representatives of Orthodox polemics Meletij Smotrickij and Zacharija Kopystenskij used different terminology to refer to «our» community, it could be invested with feature of origin, religion, language. There was a different perception of the neighboring Moscow state of the 16th—17th centuries. It was defined by the Western Russian population of The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth either as a single community with them, or was defined as a separate people. In these matters, many views depended on the political orientation of the polemicist and received school or University education.

Keywords: polemical literature, self-identification, Meletij Smotrickij, Zacharija Kopystenskij