On November 6, 2025, the Center for Unity and National Resistance platform, together with the regional administration's department for family, youth, and mass events of national-patriotic education, held another online dialogue as part of a free preparatory course for the National Military Training (NMT) on the history of Ukraine.
The topic of the dialogue was "Appanage principalities within foreign states: collapse or hope for revival?"
The guest speaker talked about the appanage principalities that were created on the lands of Ancient Rus-Ukraine, which later became part of neighboring foreign states, such as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Crimean Khanate. This process took place mainly in the second half of the 14th century and the first half of the 16th century, when the Rus' principalities were gradually absorbed and liquidated, and local princes were replaced by governors from foreign states.
The speaker emphasized that despite the external collapse, absorption by foreign states, oppression, and Catholicization, this period was not the end of Ukrainian statehood and identity. On the contrary, it was under foreign rule that the language, Orthodox faith, and customs were preserved, Cossack communities emerged as a form of resistance, Magdeburg law appeared in cities, and Western European values took root.
The appanage principalities became a kind of bridge between ancient Rus and the future Cossack state. They did not disappear without a trace — their legacy lives on in modern Ukraine.