Prince Jeremi Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, nicknamed ''Hammer on the Cossacks'' (), was a notable member of the
aristocracy
Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats.
Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...
of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
, Prince of
Vyshnivets,
Lubny and
Khorol in the
Crown of the Kingdom of Poland
The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (; ) was a political and legal concept formed in the 14th century in the Kingdom of Poland, assuming unity, indivisibility and continuity of the state. Under this idea, the state was no longer seen as the Pat ...
and the father of the future
King of Poland
Poland was ruled at various times either by dukes and princes (10th to 14th centuries) or by kings (11th to 18th centuries). During the latter period, a tradition of Royal elections in Poland, free election of monarchs made it a uniquely electab ...
,
Michael I.
A notable
magnate and military commander with
Ruthenian and
Moldavia
Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...
n origin, Wiśniowiecki was heir of one of the biggest fortunes of the state and rose to several notable dignities, including the position of
voivode
Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...
of the
Ruthenian Voivodship (today Poland and Ukraine) in 1646. His conversion from
Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...
to
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
caused much dissent in Ruthenian 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
The House of Wiśniowiecki () was a Princely houses of Poland and Lithuania, Polish-Lithuanian princely family of Ruthenian origin, notable in the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were powerful magnates with estates predo ...
family,
[Lerski, Wróbel, Kozicki, p. 654] died soon after Jeremi's birth, in 1616.
His mother,
Regina Mohyła (Raina Mohylanka) was a
Moldavia
Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...
n-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
The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...
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
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
college in
Lviv
Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...
and later, in 1629, he traveled to Italy, where he briefly attended the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...
. He also acquired some military experience in the Netherlands.
The upbringing by his uncle and the trips abroad
polonized him, and turned him into one of the youngest
magnates of Poland and Lithuania
The magnates of Poland and Lithuania (, ) were an aristocracy of Polish-Lithuanian identity, Polish-Lithuanian nobility (''szlachta'') that existed in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, from the 1569 Union o ...
.
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
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
.
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 losing a powerful protector, and
Isaiah Kopinsky,
metropolitan bishop
In Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan (alternative obsolete form: metropolite), is held by the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a Metropolis (reli ...
of
Kyiv
Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
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
Petro Mohyla 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
The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.
...
.
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
Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of
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
The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
(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
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
, usually as one of the deputies to the Sejm from the
Ruthenian Voivodeship (today
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
).
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
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
(
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
Pavlo Pavliuk (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
The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
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 himself able and willing to take care of her children – and their estates.
A year later, Katarzyna Eugenia decided to
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...
Aleksander, and the matter was settled in favor of Jeremi.
Wiśniowiecki also fought against the
Tatars in 1640–46, whose raids on the south-east frontier of the Commonwealth endangered his holdings.
In 1644 together with
Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski he took part in the victorious
Battle of Ochmatów, in which they crushed forces of
Crimean Tatars led by
Toğay bey
Mirza Tughai Bey, Tuhay Bey (; ; ; died June 1651), also spelled Togay Bey, was a notable military leader and politician of the Crimean Tatars.
Biography
Toğay descended from the Argyns, Arğıns - one of noble Crimean families, and his full ...
(Tuhaj Bej).
In 1644, after the false news of the death of
Adam Kazanowski, Wiśniowiecki took over his disputed estate of
Rumno by subterfuge.
For this he was at first sentenced to
exile
Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...
, but due to his influence, even the King could not realistically expect to enforce this ruling without a civil war.
Eventually after more discussions at local
sejmiks and then in the
Sejm
The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
, he won the case and was granted the right for Rumno.
In 1646, after the death of Koniecpolski, he became the
voivode
Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...
of Ruthenia. He invaded and took over the town of
Hadiach which was also being claimed by a son of Koniecpolski,
Aleksander Koniecpolski, but a year later, in 1647, he lost that case and was forced to return the town.
On 4 April 1646 Wiśniowiecki received the office of the
voivode of Ruthenia, which granted him a seat in the
Senate of Poland.
He was the third member of the Wiśniowiecki family to gain that privilege.
Soon afterward, however, he refused to support King Władysław's plan for a war against the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, even though the King offered him the rank of a
Field Crown Hetman
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a gras ...
.
Then the autumn of 1646, Wiśniowiecki invaded and took over the starostwo kaniowskie vacated recently by banished
Samuel Łaszcz.
He did so without any legal justifications, which caused a court ruling against him; a ruling that was however never enforced.
Later that year, he raised a large private army of about 25,000 for a purpose unknown, as noted by Widacki, who writes that the army, which Jeremi raised with an immense cost for a short time, did not participate in any engagement, nor did it have any clear purpose.
He notes that such an army might have been useful in provoking the Ottomans, but as Jeremi was opposed to the war with them up to the point of refusing the hetman office, his actions are puzzling even for the modern historians.
Khmelnytsky uprising
Wiśniowiecki fought against the Cossacks again during the
Khmelnytsky Uprising in 1648–51. He received information about a growing unrest,
and began mobilizing his troops, and in early May learned about the Cossack victory at the
Battle of Zhovti Vody.
Receiving no orders from Hetmans
Mikołaj Potocki and
Marcin Kalinowski, he began moving on his own, soon learning about the second Cossack victory at
Battle of Korsuń, which meant that his troops (about 6,000 strong) were the only Polish forces in
Transdnieper at that moment.
After taking in the situation, he began retreating towards
Chernihiv; his army soon became a focal point for various refugees.
Passing Chernihiv, he continued through
Liubech to
Brahin.
He continued to
Mazyr,
Zhytomir, and
Pohrebyshche, stopping briefly in Zhytomir for the local
sejmik.
After some skirmishes near
Nemyriv,
Makhnivka and
Starokostiantyniv (
Battle of Starokostiantyniv) against the Cossack forces,
by July he would arrive near
Zbarazh.
Wiśniowiecki's fighting retreat had a major impact on the course of the war. In the words of the historian
Władysław Konopczyński
Władysław Konopczyński (26 November 1880 – 12 July 1952) was a leading Polish historian''Encyklopedia Polski'', p. 305. and publisher of primary-source materials.''Encyklopedia powszechna PWN'', vol. 2, p. 539.
Life
Władysław Konopczyń ...
, "he was neither defeated, nor victorious, and thus he made the peace more difficult." Politicians in safe Warsaw tried to negotiate with the Cossacks, who in turn used Wiśniowiecki's actions as an excuse to delay any serious negotiations.
Around late August or early September, Wiśniowiecki met with the army
regimentarzs
Władysław Dominik Zasławski-Ostrogski,
Mikołaj Ostroróg and
Aleksander Koniecpolski. He was not on overly friendly terms with them, as he resented being passed in military nominations, but after short negotiations, he agreed to follow their orders, and thus reduced to a junior commander status which had little impact over the next phase of the campaign.
On 23 September, their forces were, however, defeated at the
Battle of Pyliavtsi; near the end of the battle some accounts suggest Wiśniowiecki was offered the hetman's position, but refused.
On 28 September in Lviv, Wiśniowiecki, with popular support, was given a field regimentarz nomination; about a week later this nomination was confirmed by the Sejm.
To the anger of Lviv's townfolk, he decided to focus on retreating towards the key fortress in
Zamość
Zamość (; ; ) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021.
Zamość was founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski ...
instead of Lviv; he would leave garrisons on both towns, and keep his army in the field.
In the end, the cities were not captured by the Cossacks, who in the light of the coming winter decided to retreat, after being paid a ransom by both town councils; no other large field battle took place that year.
Meanwhile, the
convocation sejm of 1648 had
elected a new king,
Jan Kazimierz II Vasa. Wiśniowiecki supported other candidates, such as
George I Rákóczi and
Karol Ferdynand Vasa (Jan Kazimierz's brother).
Due to the opposition from Jeremi's detractors, he was not granted a hetman position, although after a full two days of debate on the subject he was granted a document that stated he had a "power equal to that of a hetman."
Wiśniowiecki faction, arguing for an increase in army size, was once again marginalized by the faction that hoped for a peaceful resolution. In the end, the King and most of the szlachta were lulled into a false sense of security, and the military was not reinforced significantly.
To add an insult to an injury, the coronation sejm of January–February 1649, held in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
, revoked Wiśniowieck's regimentarz rank.
In the first half of 1649, the negotiations with the Cossacks fell through, and the Polish–Lithuanian military began gathering near the borders with Ukraine. A major camp was in
Zbarazh, where Wiśniowiecki would arrive as well in late June, after gathering a new army of 3,000 in
Wiśnicz, which was all he was able to afford at that time, due to most of his estates being overrun by the Cossacks.
Wiśniowiecki's arrival raised the morale of the royal army, and despite having no official rank, both the common soldiers and the new regimentarz promised to take his advice, and even offered him the official command (which he refused).
During the
siege of Zbarazh, Wiśniowiecki was thus not the official commander (role was taken by regimentarz
Andrzej Firlej) but most historians agree he was the real, if unofficial, commander of the Polish–Lithuanian army.
The siege would last until the ceasefire of the
Treaty of Zboriv.
Wiśniowiecki's command during the siege was seen as phenomenal, and his popularity among the troops and nobility rose again, however the King, still not fond of him, gave him a relatively small reward (the land grant of ''starostwo przasnyskie'', much less when compared to several others he distributed around that time).
Needing Wiśniowiecki's support in December that year, the King granted him once again a temporary hetman nomination, and several more land grants.
In April 1650, Wiśniowiecki had to return his temporary hetman office to Mikołaj Potocki, recently released from Cossack's captivity.
During December that year, in light of the growing tensions with
Muscovy, Wiśniowiecki's military faction succeeded in convincing the Sejm to pass a resolution increasing the size of the army to 51,000, the largest army since the Cossack unrest began two years earlier.
The truce of Zboriv did not last long, and in the spring of 1651 Khmelnytsky's Cossacks began advancing west again.
On 1 June 1651 Wiśniowiecki brought his private army to face the Cossacks in
Sokal.
He commanded the left wing of the Polish–Lithuanian army in the victorious
Battle of Berestechko on 28–30 June .
The Polish–Lithuanian army advanced after the retreating Cossacks, but on 17 July the King "left the whole army to
Potocki ... and having given the order that the army march into Ukraine, the King himself parted ... to Warsaw to celebrate his victories over the Cossacks." Later that year, on 14 August, Wiśniowiecki suddenly fell ill while in a camp near the village of
Pawołocz, and died on 20 August 1651, at the age of only 39.
His cause of death was never known, while some (even contemporaries) speculated he was poisoned, but no conclusive evidence to support such a claim have ever been found.
Based on sparse descriptions of his illness and subsequent investigations, some medical historians suggest the cause of death might have been a disease related to
cholera
Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...
.
However, one account states, "following a cheerful conversation with other officers who had congregated for a military council in his tent on Sunday 13 August N.S. he had eaten some cucumbers with zest and washed them down with mead, and from that contracted dysentery. After lying ill for a week, he died there, at
Pavoloch".
[Hrushevsky, p. 366] He was given a "ceremonial funeral with the entire army present. On 22 August Wiśniowiecki's body was seen off with the utmost pomp on its journey to his residence".
Wiśniowiecki's indebted family was not able to provide him with a funeral his rank and fame deserved. In the end, he never received the large funeral and the temporary location of his body, the monastery of the Holy Cross at
Łysa Góra, became his final resting place.
His body was believed lost in a fire at the end of the 18th century, which would prevent a modern reexamination of the cause of his death,
although a body purported to be his had been discovered by
Oblates in 1936. In the interwar period, the authenticity was questioned by the magnate's biographer, , who argued that the body had been burned in a fire in 1777. Forensic examination in 1980 showed that the body belonged to another person, who was taller and died at a more advanced age than Wiśniowiecki. No traces of the
autopsy performed in the 17th century were found; however, it is likely that this person lived in the same historical period and their corpse was kept on display in the monastery as Wiśniowiecki.
Wealth
The majority of the
Wiśniowiecki family estates were found
on the eastern side of the
Dnieper River (
Volhynian,
Ruthenian and
Kyiv
Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
Voivodship
A voivodeship ( ) or voivodate is the area administered by a voivode (governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in ...
s), and most of them were acquired by Jeremi's grandfather,
Aleksander Wiśniowiecki, in the 16th century.
The capital of his estate was located at a fortified manor at
Lubny, where his father rebuilt an old castle; the population of the town itself could be estimated at 1,000.
Wiśniowiecki inherited lands inhabited, according to an estimate from 1628, by about 4,500 people, of which Lubny was the largest town. Smaller towns in his lands included
Khorol,
Pyriatyn and
Pryluky.
By 1646 his lands were inhabited by 230,000 people.
The number of towns on his lands rose from several to about thirty, and their population increased as well.
The prosperity of those lands reflected Wiśniowiecki's skills in economic management, and the income from his territories (estimated at 600,000
złotys yearly) made him one of the wealthiest magnates in the Commonwealth.
Because of its size and relatively consistent borders, Wiśniowiecki's estate was often named ''Wiśniowieczczyzna'' ("Wiśniowieckiland").
Despite his wealth, he was not known for a lavish life.
His court of about a hundred people was not known for being overly extravagant, he built no luxurious residences and did not even have a single portrait of himself made during his life.
It is uncertain how Wiśniowiecki looked, although a number of portraits and other works depicting him exist.
Jan Widacki notes that much of the historiography concerning Wiśniowiecki focuses on the military and political aspects of his life, and few of his critics discuss his successes in the economic development of his estates.
Remembrance and popular culture
Wiśniowiecki was widely popular among the noble class, who saw in him a defender of tradition, a patriot and an able military commander.
He was praised by many of his contemporaries, including a poet,
Samuel Twardowski, as well as numerous diary writers and early historians.
For his protection of civilian population, including Jews, during the Uprising, Wiśniowiecki has been commended by early Jewish historians.
Until the 19th century, he has been idolized as the legendary, perfect "knight of the borderlands", his sculpture is among the twenty sculpture of famous historical personas in the 18th century "Knight Room" of the royal
Warsaw Castle.
In the 19th century this image started to waver, as a new wave in
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...
began to reinterpret his life, and as the era of
positivism in Poland put more value on builders, and less on warriors.
Further, at that time the Polish historians began to question the traditional view of the "Ukrainian problem", and the way that the Polish noble class had dealt with the Cossacks. Slowly, Wiśniowiecki's image as a hero began to waver, with various aspects of his life and personality being questioned and criticized in the work of historians such as
Karol Szajnocha and
Józef Szujski
Józef Szujski (16 June 1835 – 7 February 1883) was a Polish politician, historian, poet and professor of the Jagiellonian University.
Life
Szujski was born on 16 June 1835 in Tarnów. He studied at Tarnów, then at Kraków (1854) and at Vi ...
.
While Wiśniowiecki's portrayal (as a major secondary character) in the first part of
Henryk Sienkiewicz's
trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three distinct works that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games. Three-part works that are considered components of ...
, ''
With Fire and Sword'' which describes the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Uprising, was rather positive, criticism of his persona intensified, in particular from Sienkiewicz detractors such as
Zygmunt Kaczkowski and
Olgierd Górka.
The 1930s saw a first modern historical work about Wiśniowiecki, by .
In the era of the
People's Republic of Poland
The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
, the Communist Party's ideology dictated that all historians present him as an "enemy of the people", although this began to be relaxed after 1965.
Widacki, analyzing the work of other historians notes that
Władysław Czapliński was rather sympathetic to Wiśniowiecki, while
Paweł Jasienica was critical of him.
Andrzej Seweryn played Jeremi Wiśniowiecki in the 1999 film ''
With Fire and Sword''.
Wiśniowiecki was the main subject of one of
Jacek Kaczmarski's 1993 songs ''Kniazia Jaremy nawrócenie'' (''The Conversion of Knyaz Jarema'').
See also
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Lithuanian nobility
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Wiśniowiecki family
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List of szlachta
References
Sources
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External links
Page dedicated to Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, in Polish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wisniowiecki, Jeremi
Wisniowiecki, Jeremi
Wisniowiecki, Jeremi
Military personnel of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Wisniowiecki, Jeremi
Wiśniowiecki family
Wisniowiecki, Jeremi
Polish Roman Catholics
Former Polish Orthodox Christians
Polish people of Romanian descent
17th-century Polish people
Polish people of the Smolensk War
Polish military personnel of the Khmelnytsky Uprising
Voivodes of the Ruthenian Voivodeship
People from Kiev Voivodeship
People from Lubny
Polish people of Ukrainian descent