Gripsholm, Sweden
Warsaw Poland
Constance of Austria
Anna Maria Vase
Katarzyna Vasa
Vladislav IV Vasa
Krzysztof Vasa
Krzysztof Waza from his second marriage: Jan Kazimierz Waza
Jan II Casimir Vasa
Jan Albert Vasa
Carol Ferdinand Vasa
Alexander Karol Vase
Anna Constance Vase
Anna Katarzyna Constance
- Full royal title in Polish: Z Bożej łaski król Polski, wielki książę litewski, ruski, pruski, mazowiecki, żmudzki, inflancki, a także dziedziczny król Szwedów, Gotów i Wenedów.
- Full title in Russian: By the grace of God, the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Russia, Prussia, Mazovia, Zhmud, Livonia, as well as the hereditary king of the Swedes, Goths and Wends..
Fight for Sweden
In () year, Sigismund married the daughter of the Archduke Charles of Austria and the granddaughter of Emperor Ferdinand I - Anna, who gave birth to the future king - Vladislav in 1595.
After the death of his father Johan III (1592), Sigismund went to Sweden and was crowned with the Swedish crown (1594), but upon returning to Poland he was forced to appoint his uncle Charles, Duke of Södermanland as regent of Sweden, who, by supporting Protestantism, gained the favor of the people and clearly strived for the throne.
In 1596, Sigismund moved the capital from Krakow to Warsaw.
During his second stay in Sweden (), Sigismund alienated many of his supporters: he was finally removed from the throne (), and his uncle was declared king of Sweden at the Diet in Norrköping, in 1604, under the name of Charles IX. Sigismund did not want to give up his rights to the Swedish throne and involved Poland in 60 years of unsuccessful wars with Sweden.
After the death of his first wife Anna of Habsburg (Rakuska) in 1598, Sigismund in 1605 married her sister Constance, who gave birth to a son named John Casimir in 1609.
Sigismund III Vasa had a hard time with the death of his wife Constance on July 10, 1631 and, having become seriously ill, died of a stroke on April 30, 1632.
Wars with Russia
Polish troops under the command of Zholkiewski occupied Moscow in 1610. The Russian boyars decided to elect the son of Sigismund III, Prince Vladislav, to the Moscow throne. On October 29, 1611, the former Tsar Vasily Shuisky and his brothers Dmitry and Ivan paid him homage in Warsaw. After the liberation of Moscow by the zemstvo militia in 1612, the war continued until 1618, when a truce was concluded in Deulin, according to which Smolensk, Chernigov and Seversk lands remained with Poland.
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Notes
Literature
- Wed. Niemczewicz, “Dzieje panowania Zygmunta III” (Warš., 1829)
- Siarczyński, “Obraz wieku panowania Zygmunta III, zawieràjący opis osòb żyjących pod jego panowaniem” (Warš., 1828)
- Siarczyński, “Obraz panowania Zygmunta III, obejmujący obyczaje, religije, oświecenie i t. d." (Poznan, 1843 -58).
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Excerpt characterizing Sigismund III
On the evening of October 11, Seslavin arrived in Aristovo to his superiors with a captured French guardsman. The prisoner said that the troops that had entered Fominskoe today constituted the vanguard of the entire large army, that Napoleon was right there, that the entire army had already left Moscow for the fifth day. That same evening, a servant who came from Borovsk told how he saw a huge army entering the city. Cossacks from Dorokhov's detachment reported that they saw the French Guard walking along the road to Borovsk. From all this news it became obvious that where they thought they would find one division, there was now the entire French army, marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction - along the old Kaluga road. Dokhturov did not want to do anything, since it was not clear to him now what his responsibility was. He was ordered to attack Fominskoye. But in Fominskoe there had previously only been Broussier, now there was the entire French army. Ermolov wanted to act at his own discretion, but Dokhturov insisted that he needed to have an order from His Serene Highness. It was decided to send a report to headquarters.For this purpose, an intelligent officer was elected, Bolkhovitinov, who, in addition to the written report, had to tell the whole matter in words. At twelve o'clock at night, Bolkhovitinov, having received an envelope and a verbal order, galloped, accompanied by a Cossack, with spare horses to the main headquarters.
The night was dark, warm, autumn. It had been raining for four days now. Having changed horses twice and galloping thirty miles along a muddy, sticky road in an hour and a half, Bolkhovitinov was in Letashevka at two o'clock in the morning. Having dismounted from the hut, on the fence of which there was a sign: “General Headquarters,” and abandoning his horse, he entered the dark vestibule.
- The general on duty, quickly! Very important! - he said to someone who was rising and snoring in the darkness of the entryway.
“We’ve been very unwell since the evening; we haven’t slept for three nights,” the orderly’s voice whispered intercessively. - You must wake up the captain first.
“Very important, from General Dokhturov,” said Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door he felt. The orderly walked ahead of him and began to wake someone up:
- Your honor, your honor - the courier.
- I'm sorry, what? from whom? – said someone’s sleepy voice.
– From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. “Napoleon is in Fominskoye,” said Bolkhovitinov, not seeing in the darkness who asked him, but by the sound of his voice, suggesting that it was not Konovnitsyn.
The awakened man yawned and stretched.
“I don’t want to wake him up,” he said, feeling something. - You're sick! Maybe so, rumors.
“Here’s the report,” said Bolkhovitinov, “I’ve been ordered to hand it over to the general on duty immediately.”
- Wait, I’ll light a fire. Where the hell do you always put it? – turning to the orderly, said the stretching man. It was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant. “I found it, I found it,” he added.
The orderly was chopping the fire, Shcherbinin was feeling the candlestick.
“Oh, disgusting ones,” he said with disgust.
In the light of the sparks, Bolkhovitinov saw the young face of Shcherbinin with a candle and in the front corner a still sleeping man. It was Konovnitsyn.
When the brimstones lit up with a blue and then a red flame on the tinder, Shcherbinin lit a tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the Prussians ran, gnawing it, and examined the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was covered in dirt and, wiping himself with his sleeve, smeared it on his face.
-Who is informing? - said Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
“The news is true,” said Bolkhovitinov. - And the prisoners, and the Cossacks, and the spies - they all unanimously show the same thing.
“There’s nothing to do, we have to wake him up,” said Shcherbinin, getting up and approaching a man in a nightcap, covered with an overcoat. - Pyotr Petrovich! - he said. Konovnitsyn did not move. - To the main headquarters! – he said, smiling, knowing that these words would probably wake him up. And indeed, the head in the nightcap rose immediately. On Konovnitsyn’s handsome, firm face, with feverishly inflamed cheeks, for a moment there remained the expression of dreams of a dream far from the present situation, but then suddenly he shuddered: his face took on its usually calm and firm expression.
- Well, what is it? From whom? – he asked slowly, but immediately, blinking from the light. Listening to the officer’s report, Konovnitsyn printed it out and read it. As soon as he had read it, he lowered his feet in woolen stockings onto the earthen floor and began to put on his shoes. Then he took off his cap and, combing his temples, put on his cap.
-Are you there soon? Let's go to the brightest.
Konovnitsyn immediately realized that the news brought was of great importance and that there was no time to delay. Whether it was good or bad, he did not think or ask himself. He wasn't interested. He looked at the whole matter of war not with his mind, not with reasoning, but with something else. There was a deep, unspoken conviction in his soul that everything would be fine; but that you don’t need to believe this, and especially don’t say this, but just do your job. And he did this work, giving it all his strength.
Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, just like Dokhturov, only as if out of decency was included in the list of so-called heroes of the 12th year - the Barclays, Raevskys, Ermolovs, Platovs, Miloradovichs, just like Dokhturov, enjoyed the reputation of a person of very limited abilities and information, and, like Dokhturov, Konovnitsyn never made plans for battles, but was always where it was most difficult; he always slept with the door open since he was appointed general on duty, ordering everyone sent to wake him up, he was always under fire during the battle, so Kutuzov reproached him for this and was afraid to send him, and was, like Dokhturov, alone one of those inconspicuous gears that, without rattling or making noise, constitute the most essential part of the machine.
Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night, Konovnitsyn frowned, partly from the intensifying headache, partly from the unpleasant thought that came into his head about how this whole nest of staff, influential people would now be agitated at this news, especially Bennigsen, who was after Tarutin at knifepoint with Kutuzov; how they will propose, argue, order, cancel. And this premonition was unpleasant for him, although he knew that he could not live without it.
Indeed, Tol, to whom he went to tell the new news, immediately began to express his thoughts to the general who lived with him, and Konovnitsyn, who listened silently and tiredly, reminded him that he needed to go to His Serene Highness.
Kutuzov, like all old people, slept little at night. He often dozed off unexpectedly during the day; but at night, without undressing, lying on his bed, he mostly did not sleep and thought.
So he lay now on his bed, leaning his heavy, large, disfigured head on his plump arm, and thought, with one eye open, peering into the darkness.
Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the sovereign and had the most power in the headquarters, avoided him, Kutuzov was calmer in the sense that he and his troops would not be forced to again participate in useless offensive actions. The lesson of the Tarutino battle and its eve, painfully memorable for Kutuzov, should also have had an effect, he thought.
“They must understand that we can only lose by acting offensively. Patience and time, these are my heroes!” – thought Kutuzov. He knew not to pick an apple while it was green. It will fall on its own when it is ripe, but if you pick it green, you will spoil the apple and the tree, and you will set your teeth on edge. He, as an experienced hunter, knew that the animal was wounded, wounded as only the entire Russian force could wound, but whether it was fatal or not was a question that had not yet been clarified. Now, according to the dispatches of Lauriston and Berthelemy and according to the reports of the partisans, Kutuzov almost knew that he was mortally wounded. But more evidence was needed, we had to wait.
“They want to run and see how they killed him. Wait and see. All maneuvers, all attacks! - he thought. - For what? Everyone will excel. There's definitely something fun about fighting. They are like children from whom you can’t get any sense, as was the case, because everyone wants to prove how they can fight. That's not the point now.
And what skillful maneuvers all these offer me! It seems to them that when they invented two or three accidents (he remembered the general plan from St. Petersburg), they invented them all. And they all have no number!”
The unresolved question of whether the wound inflicted in Borodino was fatal or not fatal had been hanging over Kutuzov’s head for a whole month. On the one hand, the French occupied Moscow. On the other hand, undoubtedly with his whole being Kutuzov felt that that terrible blow, in which he, together with all the Russian people, strained all his strength, should have been fatal. But in any case, proof was needed, and he had been waiting for it for a month, and the more time passed, the more impatient he became. Lying on his bed on his sleepless nights, he did the very thing that these young generals did, the very thing for which he reproached them. He came up with all possible contingencies in which this certain, already accomplished death of Napoleon would be expressed. He came up with these contingencies in the same way as young people, but with the only difference that he did not base anything on these assumptions and that he saw not two or three, but thousands. The further he thought, the more of them appeared. He came up with all kinds of movements of the Napoleonic army, all or parts of it - towards St. Petersburg, against it, bypassing it, he came up with (which he was most afraid of) and the chance that Napoleon would fight against him with his own weapons, that he would remain in Moscow , waiting for him. Kutuzov even dreamed up the movement of Napoleon’s army back to Medyn and Yukhnov, but one thing he could not foresee was what happened, that crazy, convulsive rushing of Napoleon’s army during the first eleven days of his speech from Moscow - the throwing that made it possible something that Kutuzov still did not dare to think about even then: the complete extermination of the French. Dorokhov's reports about Broussier's division, news from the partisans about the disasters of Napoleon's army, rumors about preparations for departure from Moscow - everything confirmed the assumption that the French army was defeated and was about to flee; but these were only assumptions that seemed important to young people, but not to Kutuzov. With his sixty years of experience, he knew what weight should be attributed to rumors, he knew how capable people who want something are of grouping all the news so that they seem to confirm what they want, and he knew how in this case they willingly miss everything that contradicts. And the more Kutuzov wanted this, the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question occupied all his mental strength. Everything else was for him just the usual fulfillment of life. Such habitual fulfillment and subordination of life were his conversations with staff, letters to m me Stael, which he wrote from Tarutin, reading novels, distributing awards, correspondence with St. Petersburg, etc. n. But the death of the French, foreseen by him alone, was his spiritual, only desire.
an attempt to sit on two chairs and the mystery of one of the most valuable undiscovered treasures of the Time of Troubles
On this day, 20 June 1566, born King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, King of Sweden Sigismund III Vase (Zygmunt III Vasa, Zygmunt III Vasa). It is he who is considered the founder of the Vasa dynasty, whose representatives replaced the Jagiellons on the throne.
What do we know about this man? We have collected 10 interesting facts.
Fact 1. From Sweden to the Polish throne
Sigismund Vasa was born in the Swedish castle of Gripsholm. His parents were the Swedish prince, future King Johan III, and the Polish princess Catherine of Jagiellonka. Thanks to the fact that Sigismund's mother was a representative of this ancient family and not without the help of his maternal aunt Anna Jagiellonka and the magnate Jan Zamoyski, Sigismund was elected king of Poland in 1587.
Fact 2. Capital, Statute and a kind of record
Sigismund III Vasa was king for 45 years - a good record for that time. During Vasa's reign, the capital of the state was moved from Krakow to Warsaw, and in 1588 the third Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was approved.
Fact 3. Sigismund Vasa is an ardent Catholic
Despite the fact that the future king spent his childhood in Protestant Sweden, his educators were monks of the Jesuit Order. Sigismund Vasa retained his commitment to the Catholic faith throughout his life, so he based his policy on the principles of strengthening Catholicism, suppressing Orthodoxy and destroying Protestantism. On the initiative of the king, the Brest Church Union was concluded in 1596.
Fact 4. The beginning of the decomposition of the state
Not everyone liked the new king. In addition, Sigismund strove for absolute power during his reign. In response to this, the gentry rebelled against the king in 1607. The event entered the history books under the name Zebrzydowski's Rokosh (a rebellion of the gentry allowed by Polish law if the king flagrantly violated the laws).
Nikolai Zebrzydowski led the gentry, dissatisfied with the king’s policies and striving to achieve the coronation of Prince Wladyslaw. For some time the Rokoshans and Sigismund negotiated, then an armed clash occurred, where the royal guard won a landslide victory. Zebrzydowski apologized to the ruler, and all participants in the rokosh were subsequently rehabilitated.
Fact 5. Trying to sit on two chairs
The cherished dream of Sigismund III was to unite Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under his rule. After his father's death in 1594, Sigismund received the Swedish crown, but remained in Poland, planning to rule Sweden with the help of his uncle Charles. But the relative took advantage of the situation, enlisted the support of his subjects and achieved his coronation. Sigismund had several years left to wage war with Sweden, but to no avail.
Fact 6. Two wives and two sons
For the first time, the Polish king married the daughter of Archduke Charles of Austria, Anna. The Polish gentry did not approve of this marriage, but Sigismund was adamant. The woman gave birth to five children, but only one son, the future Polish king Vladislav, lived to adulthood. During the next birth, in 1598, the queen died.
The king married for the second time seven years after these events, moreover, to the sister of his first wife and again without the approval of the gentry. Queen Constance gave birth to a son, John Casimir, who also became the future king of Poland.
The second marriage turned out to be happier than the first. When Constance died, Sigismund took the loss seriously, fell ill and soon died of a stroke.
Fact 7. The Polish king and False Dmitry I
At the beginning of the 17th century, Sigismund decided to intervene in the struggle for the Russian throne and support False Dmitry I. The result was the Russian-Polish war, which lasted from 1605 to 1618. The Polish king was lucky: he captured Moscow. The Russian boyars even agreed to place Sigismund’s son, Vladislav, on the throne, but as a result of the zemstvo militia led by Pozharsky and Minin, the Polish troops had to retreat.
Fact 8. The secret of the treasure
The name of Sigismund is associated with the secret of one of the most valuable unfound treasures of the Time of Troubles. It is believed that when retreating from Moscow, Polish troops took with them 973 carts with jewelry from Russian churches and the royal treasury. Where these treasures went is unknown.
Fact 9. The king is a painter and sculptor
Sigismund III Vasa was considered a good connoisseur of painting, sculpture and jewelry. Three paintings he painted and silver decorations for the tomb of St. Adalbert of Prague have survived to this day.
The name of the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund III Vasa, still excites the minds of treasure hunters. Moscow gold and other treasures taken out by the Poles as war trophies never reached Mozhaisk, as previously planned.
A historical document has been preserved in Poland, where Sigismund Vasa himself describes the secret place in detail, but it is so vague that so far none of the numerous expeditions equipped to search for the treasure have been successful. The size of the loot is impressive: 923 carts were loaded with treasures of the royal treasury, clothing and jewelry, icon frames, gold church utensils, ancient crowns and scepters!
Sigismund was born on June 20, 1566 in the Swedish castle of Gripsholm, where his father, Johan Vaza, was imprisoned by his brother and king of Sweden Eric XIV after a failed rebellion. Catherine Jagiellonka, the mother of the future Grand Duke, was the Duchess of Finland and the youngest daughter of the Polish king Sigismund I the Old.
The greatest influence on Sigismund was his mother. She surrounded the boy with monks from the Jesuit order, who instilled radical Catholic views in the child. Strict religious upbringing subsequently marked the beginning of disagreement between Sigismund Vasa and the Protestant nobility of Sweden. A favorable result of close communication with the monks can be considered the high morality of the son of Catherine the Jagiellonian and the absence of a craving for immoderation and excess.
Queenless. Fight for the throne
In 1586, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stefan Batory, unexpectedly died of kidney failure. A period of “kinglessness” begins. An armed conflict almost broke out between the supporters of Voivode Zborowski, who predicted the German Archduke Maximilian to become king, and the adherents of the party of Chancellor Zamoyski, their protégé was twenty-year-old Sigismund.
The bloody clash was prevented by Primate Karnkovsky, who had the decisive vote in electing the king. The choice of Archbishop of Gniezno was determined by chance: the Zborowskis insulted the clergy and lost his favor, as a result, on August 19, 1587, the royal staff passed into the hands of Sigismund Vasa.
Now for the son of Catherine Jagiellonka there were almost no obstacles left on the way to the desired goal, but in order to further win over the gentry, on November 7 in Oliwa, Sigismund signed an agreement, pledging to transfer part of his royal powers to the Sejm.
However, the candidate from Zborowski's party, Maximilian III of Austria, was not going to give up without a fight and dared to besiege Krakow, which Zamoyski came to defend. The Archduke's knights lost the battle to the energetic and enterprising chancellor, and Maximilian himself was captured by his opponents.
The coronation ceremony of Sigismund III Vasa took place on December 27, 1587 in Krakow, the new king was 21 years old at that time.
Black ingratitude
During his first audience, Jan Zamoyski became disillusioned with the newly elected monarch. Being a supporter of Sigismund, and having won a victory at Bycin in 1588 over the king’s main opponent, he had every reason to expect, if not gratitude, then at least a warm welcome, which, alas, did not follow.
The cold meeting and restraint in communication at the very beginning ended in royal disgrace for Zamoyski later: due to the slander of ill-wishers, to which Sigismund listened with attention, the chancellor was forced to leave court service and hastily retire to his estate.
The King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became an obedient instrument in the hands of the Jesuits, who sought to extend their influence throughout Europe. The popularization of Catholicism was a priority for Sigismund III Vasa. The monarch made many enemies among Protestants and Orthodox Christians, with whom he also did not stand on ceremony.
The Greek Catholic Church in Poland owes its appearance to the Church Union of Brest in 1596: its ideological organizer was Sigismund Vasa. The purpose of this decision was the desire of the Polish king to subordinate the Orthodox Christians under his jurisdiction to the Pope.
Swedish crown
In 1592, on November 27, Sigismund's father and King of Sweden Johan III dies. The Polish monarch, with the approval of the Sejm, inherits the vacated throne, attracting Protestant votes to his side with a promise of support. At the same time, twenty-five-year-old Sigismund Vasa marries for the first time. Eighteen-year-old Anna, an Austrian Archduchess from the Habsburg family, becomes his chosen one.
From this marriage, the crowned couple has five children, of whom only one reaches adulthood. In 1598, the wife of the Polish king dies due to complications caused by her last childbirth.
Two years before the death of his wife, Sigismund is crowned with the Swedish crown, but transfers control of the country to his father's brother, the Duke of Södermanland, appointing him regent. Uncle Karl does not justify the trust placed in him. Professing Lutheranism, he incites ordinary subjects against the Catholic king, ignoring the latter’s promise not to violate the freedom of conscience of the Protestant population of the country.
The claims of an ambitious uncle cause unrest, which, in turn, leads to civil war. Despite the harsh rule of Charles, who relied on religious fears, local residents side with the regent, and in 1599, by decision of the Riksdag, Sigismund III Vasa was deprived of his royal powers in Sweden. Further attempts by the Polish monarch to regain the lost throne not only did not lead to success, but became a burdensome military service for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for a period of 60 long years.
On December 11, 1605, at the age of 39, the widowed Sigismund III married for the second time the sister of his first wife. Constance of Austria was a devoted Catholic, which, as some magnates foresaw, strengthened the position of the Jesuits at court and strengthened their influence on the public policy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The cause of the death of Sigismund III Vasa was the untimely death of his beloved wife; he survived her by only 9 months and died of a stroke in 1632.
Chapter 3 Sigismund III and the Union of Brest
On December 2 (12), 1586, Stefan Batory died. On December 20, this became known in Moscow. Recent experience has shown how important the election of a king in Poland was for Moscow. Therefore, Boris Godunov and other boyars decided to nominate Tsar Fedor (1557–1598) and actively participate in the election campaign.
On January 20, 1587, an embassy was sent to Poland led by the Duma nobleman Elizar Rzhevsky. The tsar’s letter said: “You, gentlemen, are glad, secular and spiritual, having agreed among yourself and with the whole earth, about the good of Christians, would like to give our salary to you and the sovereign for the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, so that these two states could be under our royal hand in communal love, union and completion; but we don’t want to violate your rights and liberties in any way, and we also want to add more and more with our salaries in all ranks and estates.” About the future location of the king of the Polish and Russian Tsar Fedor, it was said that he would alternately rule in Poland, then in Lithuania, then in Moscow. In Poland and Lithuania, the lords will continue to rule and communicate with foreign ambassadors on minor matters. With important matters, the ambassadors must arrive in Moscow to Tsar Fedor, and with them two noble gentlemen from Poland and Lithuania.
Alas, Boris Godunov repeated the mistake of Ivan the Terrible. The Poles and Lithuania did not need promises, even if they were quite real, but cash, and immediately.
At night, the governor of Troki, Yan Glebovich, and the crown steward, Prince Vasily Pronsky, secretly appeared to the Moscow ambassadors and directly demanded money to bribe the noble lords. The ambassadors replied that they had no orders about this, and they did not have the treasury with them.
Finally, at the second congress of the Sejm, the noble lords, already in broad daylight and publicly declared to the ambassadors: “Will the sovereign give them 200 thousand rubles for a quick defense? Without which it is impossible to talk about the election of Theodore.” The ambassadors replied that the sovereign did not buy the state, but if he was elected, the ambassadors would borrow and give the lords up to 60 thousand Polish gold. The lords objected that this was not enough. The ambassadors increased the amount to 100 thousand, but the lords did not agree to this either. They said: “The Tsar promised to give the nobility land on the Don and Donets; but in such empty places what profit will they have? It's a long way for them to go there. We have a lot of such lands and our own lands outside Kiev. Shame on you to write about such lands even in articles! Will the sovereign give our people land in the Moscow state, in Smolensk and the Severn cities? The ambassadors answered: “Whose service reaches our sovereign, the sovereign is free to grant him a fief in the Moscow state.”
Let me emphasize once again: the gentlemen said all this publicly and on behalf of the “Polish Republic”. The matter ended, as in previous times: the Moscow boyars and lords did not agree on the price of the Polish crown.
Tsar Fedor's competitors were Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Crown Prince Sigismund, son of the Swedish King John III.
Here we will have to say a few words about the Swedish Vasa dynasty. By the beginning of the 16th century. Sweden was in a dynastic (Kalmar) union with Denmark. Both kingdoms were ruled by the Danish king Christian II.
In 1521, the Swedish knight Gustav Vasa rebelled against King Christian II. The Danish troops were defeated, and in 1523 the Rigsdag (parliament) elected Gustav Vasa as king of Sweden. The new king dissolved the union. Soon the Danish aristocracy overthrew Christian II from the Danish throne. The new Danish king Frederick I recognized Gustav Vasa as king of Sweden. At this point, the Kalmar Union finally ceased to exist.
Gustav Vasa was in dire need of money and tried to improve matters at the expense of the church. This brought him into conflict with the bishops and Rome. In Sweden, Lutheran priests received freedom to preach. The citizens of Stockholm were the first to accept the new religion - from 1525, services began to be conducted here in Swedish, and a year later Olaus Petri translated the Gospel from Latin into Swedish. In 1527, at the Rigsdag in Västerås, the king, supported primarily by the nobility, insisted on the secularization of church property.
The reformation was officially adopted by church councils of 1536–1537. In 1539 a new church system was introduced. The king became the head of the church. Church administration was in charge of the royal superintendent with the right to appoint and remove clergy and audit church institutions, including bishoprics. Bishops remained, but their power was limited to consistory councils.
The Reformation contributed to strengthening the independence of the Swedish state in the form of a centralized class monarchy.
Gustav Vasa managed to strengthen not only the Swedish state, but also royal power. However, having done much to centralize royal power, Gustav, true to medieval tradition, divided the kingdom into four parts, giving them to his sons Eric, John, Magnus and Charles. After Gustav's death in 1560, his eldest son began to rule under the name Eric XIV, and the three younger brothers remained semi-independent rulers with undefined rights in relation to the king.
Eric soon came into conflict with his brother John (Johan), Duke of Finland, and most of the Swedish aristocracy. On September 29, 1568, an uprising broke out in Stockholm. Eric was dethroned, declared insane and imprisoned. His brother John (Johan) III ascended the throne.
The new king was married to Catherine (1526–1583), daughter of Sigismund I the Old. Thus, the prince Sigismund was related to the Jagiellons through the female line. However, he went down in history as Sigismund Vasa.
On August 9 (19), 1587, a group of lords - supporters of Jan Zamoyski - proclaimed Sigismund king. The rival Zborowski clan, in turn, declared Archduke Maximilian king. It is curious that the Lithuanian lords did not participate in the election of both “kings”, but sent their representatives to the Russian ambassadors and directly demanded that Tsar Fedor declare his conversion to Catholicism and that they be immediately given 100 thousand rubles in cash to begin with. The ambassadors said that the answer to this had already been given, and there would be no other answer.
Both newly elected kings hastened to introduce a “limited contingent” of their troops into Poland. Maximilian and the Austrians besieged Krakow, but the assault was repulsed. Meanwhile, Sigismund was already coming from the north with the Swedish army. The population of the capital chose to open the gates to the Swedes. Sigismund peacefully occupied Krakow and was immediately crowned there (December 27, 1587). I note that, when taking the oath, Sigismund III repeated all the obligations of previous kings towards dissidents.
Meanwhile, crown hetman Jan Zamoyski and his supporters gave battle to Maximilian at Byczyk in Silesia. The Austrians were defeated, and the Archduke himself was captured. At the beginning of 1590, the Poles released Maximilian with the obligation to no longer lay claim to the Polish crown. His brother, the Holy Roman Emperor, vouched for him.
But, unlike the previous kings of Poland, Sigismund was a fanatical Catholic. His beliefs were influenced by both his mother, a staunch Catholic, and the reformation in Sweden.
Having ascended the throne, Sigismund III immediately began persecuting dissidents (that is, non-Catholics). In 1577, the famous Jesuit Peter Skarga published the book “On the unity of the Church of God and the Greek deviation from this unity.” The first two parts of the book were devoted to dogmatic and historical research on the division of the church; the third part contained denunciations of the Russian clergy and specific recommendations to the Polish authorities in the fight against Orthodoxy. It is curious that in his book Skarga refers to all Orthodox subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth simply as “Russians.”
Skarga proposed introducing a union, for which only three things are needed: firstly, that the Metropolitan of Kiev receive a blessing not from the patriarch, but from the pope; secondly, so that every Russian agrees with the Roman Church in all articles of faith; and thirdly, that every Russian recognize the supreme power of Rome. As for church rituals, they remain the same. Skarga reprinted this book in 1590 with a dedication to King Sigismund III. Moreover, both Skarga and other Jesuits pointed to the union as “a transitional state necessary for Russians who are persistent in their faith.”
In Skarga's book and in other writings of the Jesuits, decisive action by the secular authorities against the Russians was proposed as a means of introducing a union.
Sigismund III firmly supported the idea of union. The Orthodox churches in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were organizationally weakened. A number of Orthodox hierarchs succumbed to the promises of the king and the Catholic Church.
On June 24, 1594, an Orthodox church council was convened in Brest, which was supposed to resolve the issue of union with the Catholic Church. Supporters of the union, by hook or by crook, managed to pass the act of union on December 2, 1594. The Union split the Russian population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into two unequal parts. The majority of Russians, including both gentry and magnates, refused to accept the union.
On May 29, 1596, Sigismund III issued a manifesto for his Orthodox subjects about the completed union of churches, and took full responsibility for this matter: “Having reigned happily in our states and reflecting on their improvement, we, among other things, had the desire that our subjects Our Greek faith was brought into original and ancient unity with the universal Roman Church under obedience to one spiritual shepherd. Bishops [Uniates who went to the pope. - A. Sh.] have not brought from Rome anything new and contrary to your salvation, no changes in your ancient church rites: all the dogmas and rites of your Orthodox Church have been preserved inviolably, in accordance with the decrees of the holy apostolic councils and with the ancient teaching of the holy Greek fathers, whose names and holidays you glorify you are celebrating."
Persecution of Russians who remained faithful to Orthodoxy began everywhere. Orthodox priests were expelled, and churches were handed over to the Uniates.
The Orthodox gentry, led by Prince K.K. Ostrozhsky, and the Protestants, led by the Vilna voivode Kryshtof Radziwill, decided to fight the union in the old legal way - through the Sejms. But the Catholic majority, with strong support from the king, at the diets of 1596 and 1597 thwarted all attempts by dissidents to abolish the union. As a result, the conflict between the Uniates and the Orthodox was added to the already existing interfaith strife. And in general, Sigismund was a man from another world, alien not only to his Russian subjects, but also to the Polish lords. He wore a wedge beard, like his contemporary, the cruel and suspicious Spanish King Philip, from whom Sigismund largely took his example. Instead of the simple caftan and high boots worn by Batory and other Polish kings, Sigismund dressed in sophisticated Western clothes, stockings and shoes.
In November 1592, the Swedish king John III died. Sigismund III took a year off from the Sejm to settle his inheritance affairs. He was crowned with the Swedish crown in Uppsala. After spending several months in Sweden, Sigismund went to Poland, entrusting the administration of the country to the regent - his uncle Charles of Südermanland (1530–1611)
Sigismund was clearly not popular in his homeland. Sigismund's marriage to a Catholic Austrian princess also added fuel to the fire. With Sigismund's departure to Poland, power in Sweden gradually began to pass to his uncle, Duke Karl of Südermanland. In 1594, he was officially declared the ruler of the state.
In response, Sigismund gathered Polish troops and began hostilities with Sweden. He landed directly on Swedish territory, but in 1597 he was completely defeated at the Battle of Stongebro. At the same time, fighting began in Estland, which continued until 1608 with varying success.
Sigismund III also managed to quarrel with the Zaporozhye Cossacks. At the Sejm of 1590, the king demanded to limit the number of Cossacks to six thousand people, to subordinate them to the crown hetman, to prohibit the sale of gunpowder, lead and weapons to the common people in the Kyiv land, etc.
The answer was the first great Cossack uprising. It was headed by the Orthodox nobleman Christoph Kosinsky. On December 19, 1591, the Cossacks took Belotserkovsky Castle. Following the White Church, the rebels occupied Trypillia, and a little later Pereyaslav (on the left bank of the Dnieper). In June 1592, the Cossacks besieged Kyiv, but were unable to take it.
On January 23, 1593, near the town of Pyatka near the city of Chudnov, Kosinsky’s Cossacks met with the Polish army under the command of Konstantin Ostrozhsky. The battle lasted a whole week and ended with the signing of a peace agreement.
But soon the fighting resumed. The Sejm of 1593 decided to “consider the Cossacks enemies of the fatherland.” At the end of the summer of the same year, during peace negotiations in the city of Cherkassy, Kosinsky was treacherously killed by a servant of Prince Alexander Vishnevetsky. Nevertheless, when concluding peace, the lords had to make concessions to the Cossacks.
But the death of Kosinsky was not the end, but the beginning of the Cossack wars. On October 5, 1594, the Cossacks of Severin Nalivaiko, together with the Bratslav townspeople, attacked the gentry who had gathered in Bratslav and killed them. The story of Severin Nalivaiko is similar to the story of Bogdan Khmelnytsky. His father had a farm in Gusyatin near the town of Ostrog. The Pole, Pan Kalinovsky, decided to buy land from old Nalivaiko. Having received a refusal, the Pole beat the old man to death. His son became a Cossack artilleryman (gunner), and then an ataman. Needless to say, Severin remembered his father, and Pan Kalinovsky became one of the first victims of the uprising.
In November 1594, the rebels took the cities of Bar and Vinnitsa. In Volyn, the rebel army in the spring of 1595 was divided into two parts. One, led by Nalivaiko, moved west to Lutsk, and then turned northeast, to Mogilev, and the other part, led by foreman Grigory Loboda, went southeast in the direction of Cherkassy.
In the summer of 1595, Nalivaiko’s rebels controlled all of Little Rus', with the exception of Minsk, where Hetman Kryshtof Radziwill settled.
Loboda's detachment acted rather sluggishly. Loboda entered into negotiations with the Poles in the spring of 1595 and was virtually inactive.
Soon Radziwill received reinforcements and managed to knock Nalivaiko out of Mogilev. The Cossacks, in perfect order, made the return march through Rogachev and Turov to Volyn.
In March 1596, the detachments of Nalivaiko and Loboda united. Soon Loboda was removed from command, and Matvey Shaula took his place. On March 23, Hetman Stanislav Zholkiewski attacked the rebels near the Red Stone tract. Both sides suffered heavy losses, Shaula’s arm was torn off by a cannon ball, and Nalivaiko himself was wounded. At night, the rebels retreated to Tripoli, and then to Kyiv. Zolkiewski, due to heavy losses, did not dare to pursue them, but retreated to Bila Tserkva. There the hetman wrote a letter to the Sejm, in which he urgently asked for help, claiming that all the land had “turned out.”
In May 1596, Zholkiewski, having received reinforcements, besieged the rebel camp in the Solonitsa tract, not far from Lubny. The Cossacks fortified the camp on three sides with carts placed in four or five rows, surrounded it with a ditch and a high rampart. On the fourth side of the camp there was an impassable swamp. In several places of the camp, log houses filled with earth were built, and the Cossacks placed about 30 cannons on them.
Zholkevsky, who had 5 thousand zholners alone, not counting the noble detachments and magnate teams, did not dare to storm. He understood that he was dealing with people, in his own words, brave ones, who had made the decision “in their position” to fight to the death. And instead of an assault, the Poles bribed several traitors, who on the night of May 24 captured Nalivaika and Shaula and handed them over to the Poles. They also let the Poles into the camp. A terrible massacre began, the gentlemen and zholners killed everyone who came to hand. Eyewitness I. Belsky wrote that “for a mile or more, a corpse lay on a corpse, for in total there were up to ten thousand of them in the camp with the mob and their wives.”
Nalivaiko was brought to Warsaw, where, after long weeks of torture, he was executed on April 11, 1597.
Thus ended the 16th century. Poland and Lithuania entered a new era under Sigismund III. Sigismund managed to quarrel to death with the Swedes, and in a few years he would quarrel the Poles with Russia for many centuries, if not forever.
Within the country, the king declared war on the Orthodox Church and the Cossacks. If earlier there were disputes between Russians, Lithuanians and Poles over various privileges, now the question was different - to be or not to be the Orthodox faith, the Russian language and Russian people in general. They had three options left: to die, to become Polish, or to break the neck of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
By one of the decrees of Sigismund III, Poland received a new coat of arms. Along the edges it is framed with the coats of arms of the lands that were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among them are Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Lithuania. But this is understandable. But then comes Sweden, Russia, and not in pieces, but as a whole, Pomerania, Prussia, Moldavia, Wallachia, etc. I’m afraid that now some liberal educated person will stand up for poor Poland: they say, who knows, some kind of king in the end The 16th century claimed something. Like, Zhirinovsky also wanted to wash his boots in the Indian Ocean, but is this a reason to blame Russia for aggressiveness?
I answer. The example with Zhirinovsky is a distortion of the cards, everything is clear with him. But Sigismund’s claims became the ideology of the gentry for more than 500 years. So, Poland was to become the strongest state not only in Europe, but in the whole world.
Coat of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the time of Sigismund III Vasa
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Reign of Sigismund III
1. Beginning of the reign
Born on June 20, 1566 at Gripsholm Castle, where his mother Katherine Jagiellonka accompanied her husband Johan, who was imprisoned by his brother Eric XIV. As a descendant of the Jagiellons through the female line, the 21-year-old Prince Sigismund was elected king of Poland in 1587, thanks to the efforts of his aunt Anna Jagiellonka and Jan Zamoyski. By inviting the last Jagiellon and heir to the Swedish crown to the throne, the Polish side hoped to settle territorial problems with Sweden and receive disputed lands in the north of the country. Soon after the coronation, Sigismund opposed his rival, Archduke Maximilian of Austria; the latter was defeated near Bichina and taken prisoner (1588), but was released under the treaty of 1589, according to which he renounced all claims to the Polish throne. The Poles did not like Sigismund either with his appearance or character; dislike towards him intensified even more when, having gone to Revel (1589) to meet with his father, he secretly entered into negotiations with Ernest, Duke of Austria, and under certain conditions was ready to renounce the Polish crown in his favor. The young king did not win over the powerful Zamoyski either. The first reason for the discord between them was Estonia, which Sigismund promised to annex to Poland in the treaty points, but did not fulfill his promise. The result of this was the Diet of Inquisition against the king (1592) and the weakening of royal power. The place of Zamoyski, who expected to rule the king, was taken by the Jesuits.
Sigismund set his main task to strengthen Catholicism in Poland, destroy Protestantism and suppress Orthodoxy; The Union of Brest took place under him. Along with these tasks, Sigismund was guided only by dynastic interests.
2. Weakening of the king's power
In the internal life of Poland, the reign of Sigismund marks the beginning of the era of state disintegration. The biggest events were Zebrzydowski's rokosh and the establishment of unanimity at the Sejms. The main reason for Zebrzydowski's rebellion was Sigismund's systematic attempts to establish absolutism, which, however, were constantly rejected by the diets. Sigismund sought to limit the rights of the diets, transform previous positions into ranks dependent on the king, and organize Polish rule with the help of majorates, the possession of which would give a vote in the Senate. With all his aspirations for absolutism, Sigismund, however, himself contributed to the triumph of the principle of unanimity at the Sejms, which fundamentally undermined the possibility of reforms. When Zamoyski, at the Sejm of 1589, proposed that decisions of the Sejm be decided by a majority vote, the king himself opposed this project, and opposed Opalinski to Zamoyski. Government anarchy, established under Sigismund, found its theoretical justification in the theory of golden freedom.
3. Fight for Sweden
Polish-Swedish Union 1592-1599
In (1592) Sigismund married the daughter of the Archduke Charles of Austria, the granddaughter of Emperor Ferdinand I Anna, who gave birth to the future king, Vladislav, in 1596. After the death of his father Johan III (1592), Sigismund went to Sweden and was crowned with the Swedish crown (1594), but upon returning to Poland he was forced to appoint his uncle Charles, Duke of Södermanland, as regent of Sweden, who, by supporting Protestantism, gained the favor of the people and clearly sought to the throne. During his second stay in Sweden (1598), Sigismund alienated many of his supporters: he was finally removed from the throne (1599), and his uncle was declared king of Sweden at the Diet in Norrköping in 1604, under the name of Charles IX. Sigismund did not want to give up his rights to the Swedish throne and involved Poland in 60 years of unsuccessful wars with Sweden. In 1596 he moved the capital from Krakow to Warsaw. After the death of his first wife Anna in 1598, Sigismund in 1605 married her sister Constance, who gave birth to a son in 1609, named Jan Casimir.
4. Sigismund and Transnistria
At the very end of the 16th century, Cossacks flocked to the banners of one Serbian adventurer, Michael, who took possession of Moldavia. Ukrainian daredevils were constantly looking for a person around whom they could gather; Giving shelter to impostors and generally helping brave adventurers became a custom among the Cossacks. King Sigismund III, in order to curb the Cossack willfulness, imposed an obligation on the Cossacks not to accept various rulers. When a rumor began to circulate in the Moscow land that Tsarevich Demetrius was alive, and this rumor reached Ukraine, nothing could be more natural than for such Demetrius to appear. An opportunity presented itself to transfer Ukrainian willfulness to the Moscow land under the banner under which it was accustomed to walking around the Moldavian land.
In the Dniester basin at that time there was a struggle for the creation of a Cossack state under the leadership of Severin Nalivaiko and Grigory Loboda. A document has survived to this day proving that Nalivaiko had the goal of creating a Cossack state in Transnistria.
In December 1595, he wrote a letter to the Polish king Sigismund III, in which he outlined his plans for creating a Cossack state under the patronage of the Polish king. The territory subject to the Cossacks was supposed to cover the deserts between the Bug and the Dniester on the Turkish and Tatar roads, between Tyagina (Bepdera) and Ochakov, in an area 20 miles from Bratslav, where no one had lived since the creation of the world.
Nalivaiko expected to locate the proposed Cossack state on lands taken by the Cossacks from the Crimean Khanate and formally transferred to the Polish king Sigismund, but subject to the Ukrainian hetman. Consequently, in this situation, the territorial interests of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, nor the land interests of the magnates, would not have suffered. Nalivaiko wanted to take the rebels outside of Hungary and organize a free state there.
Here, in Transnistria, Nalivaiko wanted not only to build a special city, but also to make it the center of the entire Cossacks, with the residence of the hetman, and leave only his assistant in the Sich.
Nalivaiko writes a letter to Sigismund, which talks about taxes on the population: to support his Cossack army, he wanted to collect stations, but not in Ukraine, but in Belarus, in the royal lands, since Ukraine was forced to fight, and not manage.
For the protection and defense of the Polish border, the Cossacks were supposed to receive wages and cloth in the same way as they pay wages to the Tatars, or royal zholners.
If we compare Nalivaiko’s political plans, outlined in his letter to King Sigismund, with specific actions, their direct connection will become obvious. The detachments of Nalivaiko and Loboda practically did not leave the areas of Kili, Bendery, Akkerman; they appeared near Iasi, and near Soroki, and in Pokuttya.
Nalivaiko himself wrote about these campaigns to King Sigismund III... We broke into Kiliya and besieged Tegin. Having taken the city, we partially cut the filthy ones with a saber, partially took them alive, burned the city, but could not take the castle...
In 1595, the Cossacks of Nalivaiko, together with the peasants of Moldova, Hungary, Transylvania and Austria, fought against Turkey. Emperor Rudolph called Nalivaiko into his service and even gave him a banner. In the same letter to Sigismund, he writes: Having a letter from the Tsar, we set off into his lands, where we served him for nothing, but only out of our knightly honor.
Returning to Podolia and Transnistria, Nalivaiko began the fight against the Polish lords and died near Lubny. The idea of a Cossack state in Transnistria was no longer revived.
Poland, being under the cover of the Transnistrian, Podolian and Galician lands, did not feel the Turkish-Tatar danger so keenly. By the time the Tsetsorsk and Khotyn wars began in the 17th century, there had been no direct clashes between Poland and Turkey for almost a hundred years.
sigismund king union war
5. Wars with Russia
Nurturing plans for expansion to the east, Sigismund supported False Dmitry I by concluding a secret agreement with him. Upon his accession to Moscow, the impostor promised to give Poland the Chernigov-Seversk land. After the death of False Dmitry I, Sigismund in 1609 led the siege of Smolensk. Polish troops under the command of Zholkiewski occupied Moscow in 1610. The Russian boyars decide to elect the son of Sigismund III, Prince Vladislav, to the Moscow throne. After the liberation of Moscow by the zemstvo militia in 1612, the war continued until 1618, when a truce was concluded in Deulin, according to which Smolensk, Chernigov and Seversk lands remained with Poland.
Bibliography
1. History of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. T. 1. - Tiraspol: RIO PSU, 2001.
