Pylypenko V. Antiturkish Discourse in Polish Political Reflections in the Middle of the 16th - the Middle of the 17th c.

This research is devoted to the attitude of Polish brainpower to the problems connected with the Turkish-Tatar threat and the representation of this problem in Polish political reflections in the middle of the 16th - the middle of the 17th c. On the basis of the analysis of the texts of publicistic was founded that the problem of Turkish-Tatar threat was an important part of Polish political literature of the following period. The formation of Polish antiturkish discourse in literature took part in the middle of the 16th c. It was connected with the creative work of famous writers Stanislav Orihovs'kyj and Andzhey Frich Modzhevs'kyj. In famous speeches about Turkish threat Orihovs'kyj appealed to the king and the gentry. He asked them to be more attentive to the potential threat from the Ottoman Empire. The writer analyzed the geopolitical situation of the Polish Commonwealth and came to the conclusion that Poland may become the next object of Turkish threat. Thinking about the prospects of Poland Orihovs'kyj has changed his point of view on the problem. In the first speech about the Turkish threat the publicist called only to protect from the possible attack of Turkey and asserted that among European countries only Germany is able to help Poland in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire. In the second - the author encouraged to the preventive war and creation of general European antiturkish coalition. The second founder of antiturkish discussion in the Polish political literature was Modzhevs'kyj. He paid more attention to the reforming of the army with the aim to improve its military capacity. The author suggested to build the network of small fortifications on the borderline and to create military colonies on their places. These authors were the first who have formed ideas and literal plots which became popular in the publicistic in the middle of the 16th - the middle of the 17th c. After electing on the Polish throne Sigismund Waza - the representative of the Swedish royal family - Polish-Turkish relations became worse. The new king has started to push the Polish Commonwealth to the war with the Ottoman Empire at once. The gentry were against it. Such conflict of interests was reflected in the social and political literature at the end of XVI c. One of the most popular topics in antiturkish literature was joining or not joining to the general European Hole League organized by the Habsburgs. The most famous propagandists of antiturkish war were K. Warshevickij, P. Hrabovskij, Y. Wereshchinskij. All of them belonged the royalists group of the gentry. The majority of gentry and the part of the magnates tried to keep status quo and not to break war. At the beginning of the 17th c. the amount of antiturkish literature decreased. It was connected with the normalization of the relations between Warsaw and Istanbul. From the 1610th the antiturkish propaganda in Poland increased. The problems of the Turkish-Tatar threat were especially important in the periods of interregnum and during the elections of a new king. Every magnate-gentry party agitating for the election of their candidate used the Turkish problem in the propaganda through political literature. The examples of such agitation are the works of Piotr Mycielski and Jan Dymitr Solikowski. In their speeches, poems, and discussions they used approximately the same facts. All of them tried to prove that only their candidate will be able to make peace with the sultan or win the Turkish army in case of war. In this period the main plots called to protect Poland from the Tatars' invasion and to prepare for the war with Porta which was to begin soon. From the beginning of the 17th c. the publicists started to pay more attention to the questions of army reforming as it was understandable that Polish "quartzian" army which was to protect Ukrainian land from Tatars' invasion was too slow. The peak of antiturkish agitation at the beginning of the 17th c. was the threshold of the Khotyn war (1621-1621). In the period before Cecora and Khotyn battles the literature gave pessimistic predictions though nobody doubted in the victory of Warsaw over Porta. After the Khotyn battle the main idea was the full faith in the invincibility of the Polish army and the possibility to destroy the Ottoman Empire completely. The dependence of antiturkish literature from outer and inner conditions was proved. During the middle of the 16th - the middle of the 17th c. we defined two "peaks" in the appearance of antiturkish literature. The first is the end of the 16th c. The reasons were connected with the agitation of joining of Poland the Hole League organized by the Habsburgers. The second - the day before and some years after the Khotyn war. After the war the amount of antiturkish literature gradually decreases. The main plots used by the authors of the antiturkish literature were distinguished. The most popular were the slogan to making the general European antiturkish alliance, reforming of polish army, offensive war against Porta and military-economical colonization of the southern-east of the Polish Commonwealth. In the period from the middle of the 16th - to the middle of the 17th c. Turkish problem was in the focus of attention on local and general sejms. The most active in the solutions of the problems of southern-eastern borders were the representatives of Ukrainian province. The peak of gentries' attention to the Turkish problem was 1619 - 1623. The importance of the "Turkish problem" in the works of provincial seymycs and general Seym was analyzed.