Academic literature on the topic 'Polish-Muscovite War'

The Chudnov-Slobodishche Campaign in 1660 was one of the bloodiest in the Thirteen Years’ War and resulted in the destruction of an entire Muscovite field army of 32,000 and the defection of Hetman Iurii Khmel’nyts’ky to the Poles. Patrick Gordon was a participant in this campaign, as a Captain Lieutenant of dragoons in the Polish army—he was then just 25 years old and had entered Polish service only a year before. Gordon’s account of the campaign, in folios 53–93 v. of the second volume of his diary, provides valuable details about both Polish-Lithuanian and Muscovite military technique at this stage of the war. It also relates the circumstances under which Gordon, after helping to destroy a Muscovite army, left Polish service and managed to enter the service of the tsar. 1

One of the main sources about Russia’s “Time of Troubles” are the memoirs of foreign observers. One of them is Polish Captain Mikołaj Scibor Marchocki’s History of the Muscovite War. Marchocki participated in and commented on many events of the “Troubles.” In this article, the author analyzes the original text of History of the Muscovite War as well as all later copies and published versions. He traces the history of the text and cross-checks the information contained in it with documents produced by other Polish and Lithuanian mercenaries. The author makes a strong case for a new scholarly edition of Marchocki’s important memoirs.

Abstract The paper deals with the history of unsuccessful Russian-Polish military cooperation in the 1660s – 1680s. For approximately twenty years Moscow and Warsaw had been trying to join their military forces against, at first rebellious Ukrainian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars, and then against the Turks too. But all negotiations and attempts to realize plans of military cooperation by joining forces failed because of several reasons. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, hoping firstly to bring to obedience hetman Peter Doroshenko with Russian support, then tried to recapture invaded by Ottomans Podolia and appropriately wanted Russian troops to be moved there, not between Dnepr and Dniester, as it had been agreed before. Another thing that didn’t satisfy the Polish-Lithuanian side was a parity basis of joining troops (later of mutual exchanging of units), fixed in the text of alliance of December 1667. The Polish-Lithuanian army was becoming weaker because of long wars with Turks, Tatars, Cossacks and therefore needed military support, mainly infantry and artillery, more than Muscovite Russia, which had a more numerous army. That’s why Polish commanders tried to receive under their command Russian units without sending any soldiers and officers of the Commonwealth to the Muscovite army. So Russia finally refused to join its forces with the Polish-Lithuanian army and the new alliance of 1686 stipulated that each signatory was to wage war independently.

Polotia recepta. A Map of the Principality of Polatsk: Texts and Pretexts of thePower Dispute This study discusses an important aspect of a political message conveyed by Stanisław Pachołowiecki’s map, published in 1580 by G.B Cavalieri’s printing house in Rome as part of The Atlas of the Principality of Polatsk – Descriptio Ducatus Polocensis. The message in question is one of the paratexts, presenting a detailed historical note on Polatsk and the Principality. The main goal of the study is to prove a double hypothesis, first that the note on Polatsk was a key argument legitimising the rule of Stephen Báthory – contested by Tsar Ivan the Terrible – not only over the small territory under dispute but over the whole Great Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and second, that the decision to aim the first Polish-Lithuanian military offensive in the 1577–1582 war at Polatsk was motivated by political rather than military or strategic considerations. In section I, preliminary assumptions, theses and research methods are presented. Then, in section II, the context of the propaganda campaign, as Pachołowiecki’s map ideological framework, is introduced. This is followed by a critical analysis of the historical note, based on Polish and Ruthenian-Lithuanian sources (III.1). The next section (III.2) demonstrates that Polatsk held a central place in the Muscovite political discourse. Having proclaimed himself a heir to the throne of the Great Duchy and to the crown of Poland, Ivan the Terrible seized the land of Polatsk, and the efficient Muscovite diplomacy started to assert the tsar’s alleged dynastic claim to Lithuania and Poland. In this way, the manipulated history of the “recovered Polatsk”, Polotia recepta, argued to be a historical part of Lithuania, can be seen as a reply to the Muscovite discourse of power drawing on dynastic claims to a non-existent duchy, and the key matter is the legitimisation of elective monarchy as opposed to hereditary one. Having discussed the theatrical and iconic form of the Polish triumph over Ivan the Terrible (III.3), the author highlights the long life of the political myth of the Polatsk statehood and its sign ificance for today’s Belarusian identity discourse.

Władysław IV Smolensk campaign is well described both in historical works and sources including diaries of Mikhail Borisovich Shein. One of these diaries now kept Riksarkivet in Stockholm describes military activities from the coming of relief force organized by Władysław IV in September 1633 to the Treaty of Polyanovka signed in June 1634. It contains previously unknown information about battles of Smolensk, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth troops march, complex relationships between hetmans, difficulties of army provisioning, officers and soldiers of various types of units. Thanks to the documents from the theatre of war we are able to reconstruct the structure of the officer cadre of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Muscovite forces. Also noteworthy are relations of Registered Cossacks comprised special units of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that came to present in front of the king. The Diary mainly describes military activities until the surrender of Shein, leaving little space to describe the struggle on the Biała in spring 1634. That event is described in every detail in the diary of John Moskorzewski.

Property Requisition: A Case Study of early 17th-Century Military Operations for Research on the Early Modern Law on War TrophiesSummary This article is on the requisitioning of property by soldiers stationing on enemy territory. The author presents the law on war trophies in force in Poland-Lithuania in 1609–1619, when the country was at war against the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. In particular he examines a protestation lodged by Stanisław Galiński, a Mazovian nobleman. This document provides evidence that pursuant to the Polish-Lithuanian law of war abandoned property could be lawfully requisitioned providing the party taking possession of the vacant real estate became its effective holder by taking over its management. This theory is confirmed by a 1613 parliamentary resolution which allowed for the confiscation of requisitioned property from soldiers who could not prove their title to tenure on these grounds. The legal situation of requisitioned properties was similar to that of property held by the Muscovite boyars of the Smolensk region, who were granted a conditional endorsement of tenure, with the recognition of a title in fee simple subject to enfeoffment by the king.

The article is devoted to the analysis of images of territorial coats of arms in the "Titulyarnik" of 1672. The "Titulyarnik," existing in several copies, is the most important source on the history of Russian heraldry. It is a complete visual embodiment of the complex of territorial coats of arms, formed via mentioning the corresponding lands in the royal title. By the early 1670s, the territorial title of the Russian tsars included over 30 names. It had significantly changed and had been supplemented in connection with the events of the war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1654–67, which was successful and resulted in annexation of new territories. These territorial incorporations were interpreted by the Russian side as the return of the ancestral lands, the "fatherland" of the Muscovite sovereigns. The "Titulyarnik" became the second source after the Great Seal of Ivan the Terrible, in which the heraldic representation of the royal title was given in its entirety. The complex of territorial coats of arms underwent certain changes since the end of the 1570s, when the Great Seal of Ivan the Terrible had been created. These changes most probably took place under the first Romanovs, starting in the 1620s. At the same time, some coats of arms were re-drawn. In the "Titulyarnik," most of the territorial coats of arms were also changed. Moreover, the complex of territorial coats of arms was supplemented with completely new coats of arms. Iconographic and source analysis of the images of coats of arms and their comparison with earlier versions has allowed the author to identify some important patterns of their transformation. It has been determined that many territorial coats of arms of the "Titulyarnik" were significantly strengthened by Christian semantics. This was primarily done by addition of various Christian symbols to the coats of arms. The most important of these symbols was the cross, represented in its two forms — straight and x-shaped cross. Thus, the heraldic reform carried out in the "Titulyarnik" was consistent; it was associated with the need to emphasize the Orthodox nature of the Muscovite Tsardom as guardian and defender of the Christian religion. Christian semantics also appeared in the heraldic verses written by an unknown author in the 1670s. In these verses, the territorial coats of arms were described and their interpretation was given. Variants of the coats of arms presented in the "Titulyarnik" continued to exist in the period of the Russian Empire.

Before 1690 the Muscovite state was handicapped by its lack of knowledge of western engineering techniques and especially of mathematics and geometry. From the time of Peter the Great it moved rapidly to close the gap with the appointment of experienced foreign engineers, translation work, and the establishment of military academies. Originally lagging behind their Polish-Lithuanian enemies in gunnery and cartography, the Russians had by the eighteenth century introduced a new technical vocabulary into Russian and established good schools of navigation, gunnery, cartography and artillery.

This chapter examines the tumultuous era that began with the failed Muscovite advance toward Riga. It continues through four decades of Polish rule (1581–1621). By this time, the demise of the archbishopric and of the Livonian Order during the Livonian War (1558–1582) left Riga and the territory of Livonia vulnerable to the ambitions of aggressive regional powers. Whatever the disagreements among the great powers of the Baltic Sea, all understood that a secure and prosperous Riga would add considerably to the fortunes of whomever controlled it. This era of alien occupation and of religious and political strife is illustrated by a close examination of Riga's unique “Calendar Upheavals” of the 1590s.

This chapter examines the legislative foundations of witchcraft trials. In early modern legal systems that were cobbled together as boundaries shifted, empires expanded and incorporated new populations, and overlapping jurisdictions bumped up against each other, it could be unclear which authority should hear a case or what legal statute should pertain. In the particular instance of witchcraft, the range of jurisdictions was particularly broad, since it was one of the rare crimes that could fall under either secular or spiritual authorities. Even when jurisdictions were sorted out and the relevant legal statutes were clear, in some venues the authorities might find ways to avoid prescribed legal norms. This disregard for the letter of the law, particularly in sentencing, appears to be a factor in the relatively small number of trials and low execution rate of accused witches in the Ukrainian regions under both Polish-Lithuanian and Russian rule. It is with the legal history of this region, the eastern Ukrainian territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that the chapter begins, before turning to Muscovite Russia, and finally, the Russian Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.