The Tatar-Mongol invasion was a huge disaster for the southern and southwestern lands of Russia, which delayed the development of the economy and culture of this part of the country for many years, on the territory of which the Ukrainian nation was later formed, and the fragmentation of the principalities into small estates facilitated their seizure by Lithuanian and Polish feudal lords.
The close contact of Ukrainian culture with Polish and Lithuanian, as well as with Western European, has left a deep mark on Ukrainian art. But, despite the fact that the Ukrainian lands were part of other states, their ties with Russia were not interrupted, as the consciousness of kinship and historical community of the three great branches of the Eastern Slavs did not fade. Trade and cultural ties with the growing Moscow state were especially close.
By the beginning of the XV century, the process of formation of the Ukrainian nationality was clearly revealed both in language and in all areas of art and culture. Social and national oppression, the absence of their statehood slowed down the formation of the Ukrainian nation and its culture, but could not stop it. The resistance of the people to foreign invaders and local feudal lords found expression in the flight of peasants to the lower reaches of the Dnieper, where in the XV century a special organization was formed – the Zaporozhian Sich, and then resulted in the form of peasant uprisings. Zaporozhye Sich was a kind of military-political center of the entire Ukrainian people.
The historical development of Ukraine was negatively affected by the neighborhood of the Crimean Horde. She conducted systematic raids on Ukrainian lands, burned towns and villages, stole tens of thousands of Ukrainian captives and sold them into slavery in eastern markets.
The XV century was marked by the development of crafts and trade, the deepening of the division of labor, the separation of the city from the village, the emergence and strengthening of craft organizations-workshops, as well as religious and class associations of Ukrainian burghers – fraternities.
