Poetry
Wojna domowa z Kozaki i Tatary, Moskwą, potym Szwedami i z Węgry
Not translated into English
Samuel Twardowski · 1681
Synopsis
A verse chronicle, in four books, of the wars Poland fought under John Casimir, from 1648 to 1660. The first book follows Khmelnytsky's Cossack uprising, the Polish defeats and the death of the king, the cruelties of the peasant revolt, the actions of Prince Wiśniowiecki, the rout at Piławce, the election of the new king and the siege of Zbaraż; the following books pass through the battle of Beresteczko, the campaigns of 1652 and 1653, the agreement of Pereiaslav and the Swedish invasion.
Context
The poem appeared in pieces: a part on the Cossack war of 1651 was printed at Leszno in the 1650s, the first book at Kraków in 1660, at the expense of the bookseller Jerzy Forster. The whole, a posthumous work, was published in 1681 by the Jesuit college of Kalisz, which censored it for use in its classes. The manuscript revised by the author burned in 1944; only the notes of Alojzy Kowalkowski, who had collated it, preserve a trace of it. The Cossack chronicler Samiilo Velychko made use of it, and two Ukrainian translations of it were made in the eighteenth century.
Who it is for
A very long verse chronicle, laden with names, battles and treaties, which assumes knowledge of the Polish and Ukrainian history of the period. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
Sometimes called the Polish national epic, and regarded as its author's most famous and most esteemed work.
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