In the final diird of the nineteenth century, the Polish-Ruthenian (Ukrainian) borderland in the eastern Lublin and Siedlce gubernias of the Kingdom of Poland became a location of intense ethnic and religious rivalry, a situation not uncommon in numerous borderland regions throughout eastern Europe. At first, Russians and Poles competed for the nationally "malleable" population of the Chelm and Podlasie regions, as this territory was known. After the Russians were evicted from the Kingdom of Poland in 1915, Poles and nationally awakening Ukrainians saw not only distinct portions of the population but also the territory as "theirs."