 During this earlier period of the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth, the separate Ukrainian national consciousness was being formed, influenced in part by the context and heroes of the Cossack uprisings. The legacy of Kievan Rus'was recognized, as was the heritage of the East Slavic Ruthenian language. Cossacks felt being members of the "Rus' Orthodox nation" (the Uniate Church was practically eliminated in the Dnieper region in 1633). But seeing themselves also as members of the (Polish) "Republic-Fatherland", they dealt with sejms and kings as its subjects. Cossacks and the Ruthenian nobility, until recently subjects of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, were not formally or otherwise connected to the Tsardom of Russia.
