Jeremi Wiśniowiecki

Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki ( uk, Ярема Вишневецький – Yarema Vyshnevetsky; 1612 – 20 August 1651) nicknamed ''Hammer on the Cossacks'' ( pl, Młot na Kozaków), was a notable member of the aristocracy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Prince of Wiśniowiec, Łubnie and Chorol in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the father of the future King of Poland, Michael I.

A notable magnate and military commander with Ruthenian and Moldavian origin, Wiśniowiecki was heir of one of the biggest fortunes of the state and rose to several notable dignities, including the position of voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship in 1646. His conversion from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism caused much dissent in Ruthenian (Ukrainian) lands (part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). Wiśniowiecki was a successful military leader as well as one of the wealthiest magnates of Poland, ruling over lands inhabited by 230,000 people.

Biography

Youth

Jeremi Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki was born in 1612; neither the exact date nor the place of his birth are known. His father, Michał Wiśniowiecki, of the Ruthenian Wiśniowiecki family,Lerski, Wróbel, Kozicki, p. 654 died soon after Jeremi's birth, in 1616. His mother, Regina Mohyła (Raina Mohylanka) was a Moldavian-born noble woman of the Movilești family, daughter of the Moldavian Prince Ieremia Movilă, Jeremy's namesake; she died in 1619. Both of his parents were of the Eastern Orthodox Church rite; Jeremy's uncle was the influential Orthodox theologian Petro Mohyla, and his great-uncle was Gheorghe Movilă, the Metropolitan of Moldavia.

Orphaned at the age of seven, Wiśniowiecki was raised by his uncle, Konstanty Wiśniowiecki, whose branch of the family were Roman Catholics. Jeremi attended a Jesuit college in Lwów and later, in 1629, he traveled to Italy, where he briefly attended the University of Bologna. He also acquired some military experience in the Netherlands. The upbringing by his uncle and the trips abroad polonized him, and turned him from a provincial Ruthenian ''knyaz'' into one of the youngest magnates of Poland and Lithuania.

In 1631 Wiśniowiecki returned to the Commonwealth and took over from his uncle the management of his father's huge estate, which included a large part of what is now Ukraine. In 1632 he converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism, an action that caused much concern in Ukraine. His decision has been analyzed by historians, and often criticized, particularly in Ukrainian historiography. The Orthodox Church feared to lose a powerful protector, and Isaiah Kopinsky, metropolitan bishop of Kyiv and a friend of his mother, unsuccessfully pleaded with him to change his mind. Jeremi would not budge although he remained on decent terms with the Orthodox Church, avoiding provocative actions, and supported his uncle and Orthodox bishop Peter Mogila and his Orthodox Church collegium.

Later life

Wiśniowiecki's courtier and first biographer, Michał Kałyszowski, counted that Jeremi participated in nine wars in his lifetime. The first of those was the Smolensk Campaign of 1633–34 against the Tsardom of Russia. In that war he accompanied castellan Aleksander Piaseczyński's southern army and took part in several battles, among them the unsuccessful siege of Putyvl; later that year they took Rylsk and Sevsk before retreating. The following year he worked with Adam Kisiel and Łukasz Żółkiewski, commanding his own private army of 4,000. As his troops formed 2/3 of their army (not counting supporting Cossack elements), Jeremi, despite being the most junior of commanders, had much influence over their campaign. Lacking in artillery, they failed to take any major towns, but ravaged the countryside near Sevsk and Kursk. The war ended soon afterward, and in May 1634 he returned to Lubny. For his service, he received a commendation from the King of Poland, Władysław IV Vasa, and the castellany of Kyiv.

After the war Wiśniowiecki engaged in a number of conflicts with neighbouring magnates and nobles. Jeremi was able to afford a sizable private army of several thousands, and through the threat of it he was often able to force his neighbours to a favourable settlement of disputes. Soon after his return from the Russian front, he participated on the side of the Dowmont family in the quarrel over the estate of Dowmontów against another magnate, Samuel Łaszcz, located on his lands; soon after the victorious battle against Łaszcz he bought the lands from the Dowmonts and incorporated them into his estates.

Around 1636 the Sejm (Polish parliament) opposed the marriage of King Władysław IV Waza to Wiśniowiecki's sister, Anna. Following this, Jeremi distanced himself from the royal court, although he periodically returned to Warsaw, usually as one of the deputies to the Sejm from the Ruthenian Voivodeship. Soon afterward, Jeremi himself married Gryzelda Zamoyska, daughter of Chancellor Tomasz Zamoyski, on 27 February 1639, Gryzelda's 16th birthday.

At that time Wiśniowiecki also engaged in a political conflict over nobility titles, in particular, the title of prince ( kniaź). The nobility in the Commonwealth was officially equal, and used different and non-hereditary titles than those found in rest of the world (see officials of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth); the gist of the conflict, which took much of the Sejm's time around 1638–41, revolved around whether old prince titles (awarded to families before their lands were incorporated into the Commonwealth in the 1569 Union of Lublin), and the new titles, awarded more recently by some foreign courts, should be recognized. Wiśniowiecki was one of the chief participants in this debate, successfully defending the old titles, including that of his own family, and succeeding in abolishing the new titles, which gained him the enmity of another powerful magnate, Jerzy Ossoliński. Other than this conflict, in his years as a deputy (1635–46), Jeremi wasn't involved in any major political issues, and only twice (in 1640 and 1642) he served in the minor function of a commissar for investigating the eastern and southern border disputes.

In 1637 Wiśniowiecki might have fought under Hetman Mikołaj Potocki against the Cossack rebellion of Pavel Pavluk (the Pawluk Uprising); Jan Widacki notes that historians are not certain whether he did and in either case, no detailed accounts of his possible participation survive. A year later, returning from the Sejm and from the engagement ceremony with Gryzelda, he gathered a 4,000 strong division that participated in putting down of the Ostrzanin Uprising and arrived at the region affected by the unrest in June that year. Together with Hetman Potocki he defeated the insurgents at the Battle of Żownin, which turned into a rather difficult siege of the Cossack camp that lasted from 13 June till the Cossack relief forces were defeated on 4 August, and the Cossacks capitulated on 7 August.

Final years

In 1641, after the death of his uncle Konstanty Wiśniowiecki, Jeremi became the last adult male of the Wiśniowiecki family and inherited all the remaining estates of the clan, despite a brief conflict with Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł who also claimed the inherited land. The conflict stemmed from the fact that Konstanty asked Jeremi to take care of his grandchildren, but their mother, Katarzyna Eugenia Tyszkiewicz, married Aleksander, who declared he is able and willing to take care of her children – and their estates. A year later, Katarzyna Eugenia decided to divorce Aleksander, and the matter was settled in favor of Jeremi.

Wiśniowiecki also fought against the Tatar

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