All szlachta members, irrespective of their cultural/ethnic background, were regarded as belonging to a single "political nation" within the Commonwealth. Arguably, a common culture, the Catholic religion and the Polish language were seen as the main unifying factors in the dual state. Prior to the Partitions there was said to have been no Polish national identity as such. Only szlachta members, irrespective of their ethnicity or culture of origin, were considered as "Poles". Despite Polonisation in Lithuania and Ruthenia in the 17th-18th centuries, a large part of the lower szlachta managed to retain their cultural identity in various ways. Due to poverty most of the local szlachta had never had access to formal education nor to Polish language teaching and hence could not be expected to self-identify as Poles. It was common even for wealthy and in practice Polonised szlachta members still to refer to themselves as Lithuanian, Litwin or Ruthenian, Rusyn. According to Polish estimates from the 1930s, 300,000 members of the common nobles s zlachta zagrodowa – inhabited the subcarpathian region of the Second Polish Republic out of 800,000 in the whole country. 90% of them were Ukrainian-speaking and 80% were Ukrainian Greek Catholics. In other parts of the Ukraine with a significant szlachta population, such as the Bar or the Ovruch regions, the situation was similar despite Russification and earlier Polonization. As an example: However the era of sovereign rule by the szlachta ended earlier than in other countries, excluding France, in 1795 (see Partitions of Poland). Since then their legitimacy and fate depended on the legislation and policies of the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg monarchy. Their privileges became increasingly limited, and were ultimately dissolved by the March Constitution of Poland in 1921. There were a number of avenues to upward social mobility and the attainment of nobility. The szlachta was not rigidly exclusive or closed as a class, but according to heraldic sources, the total number of legal ennoblements issued between the 14th and mid-18th century, is estimated at 800. This is an average of about two ennoblements per year. According to two English journalists Richard Holt Hutton and Walter Bagehot writing on the subject in 1864, and Sociologist and historian, Jerzy Ryszard Szacki said in this context, Others assert the szlachta were not a social class, but a caste, among them, historian Adam Zamoyski, Jerzy Szacki continues, Low-born individuals, including townsfolk mieszczanie,