Yet with all of the drawbacks and the troubles, life in Kiev was good in the twelfth century, until in 1169 Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky of Suzdal in the north sacked the city and moved the centre of the state to his native town and then later to Moscow. The interpretation of this action has long been a bone of contention between Ukrainian and Russian scholars. To the latter it was a necessary and logical step in the development of the Russian Empire. To the former it was a brutal conquest of a civilized government by foreigners and strangers. It did cause a sharp break in history which was emphasized still more by the fact that the new centre was never able to assert its authority over Galicia and Volynia to the west. The dynasty reigning there even was able for a time to call themselves the Kings of Rus. Whatever the merits of the controversy over the relations of the princes of Suzdal and Moscow to those of Kiev and the south, the fact remains that Kievan Rus and Ukraine was now split in half and was not to be brought together again fully except for a few months in 1918 and 1919. Perhaps the damage would have been alleviated, if time had allowed the normal development of Moscow. The coming of the Mongols and Tatars changed everything. When the hordes of Genghis Khan swept over the land, Kiev bore the brunt of the desolation at a time when it had hardly recovered from the sack of the preceding century. The princes of Moscow readily submitted and henceforth the Tatar element and traditions grew in the northern capital. This process continued for two centuries and at the end of that period, when Ivan the Great finally declared his independence and assumed the title of Autocrat and Tsar of Russia, the manners and customs of Moscow were very different from those which had prevailed at the time of the coming of the Tatars. Ukraine had a different fate. The western provinces formed a dangerous wedge between Poland and Hungary and extended into the area claimed by the Latin world. The Holy Roman Empire was pressing eastward with the Germans as the nucleus and the predominant power. Poland and Hungary confronted with this turned east in their turn. Both were Roman Catholic powers and western in culture and organization. Both were in frequent alliance and their dynasties were related by marriage. It was to the interest of both to crush Rus with its Orthodox traditions and its Byzantine culture. To the north was Lithuania, still pagan but with able rulers. To make a long story short, the end came in 1349 when the Western principalities of Ukraine fell under the power of Lithuania and Poland. At about the same era the people in the Carpathians passed under the control of Hungary. Lithuania acquired control of the area around Kiev, so that by the time of the marriage of Jadwiga of Poland and Jagiello of Lithuania in 1385, a large part of Ukraine was under the control of Catholic rulers and the remainder was under the Tatar yoke.