Piotr Skarga i Zygmunt III. W czterechsetną rocznicę śmierci królewskiego kaznodziei

Abstract

27 September 2012 was the 400th anniversary of the death of the royal preacher to Sigismund III – the Jesuit priest Piotr Skarga. On this occasion the year 2012 was announced to be Piotr Skarga’s year and a few scholarly conferences were convened (among others, in Cracow, Toruń, Łódź and Pułtusk). In the 19th c., when Poland was already partitioned by the neighbouring superstates, the preacher prophesying the end of the Republic of Poland as early as towards the close of the 16th c. – the golden age, entered the pantheon of national heroes. Its legend is still alive in contrast to the king of Sigismund III, whose 400th anniversary of birth (on one thousand years’ anniversary of adoption of Christianity by Poland, 1966) and of his ascending the throne of the Republic of Poland (1987) passed unnoticed, similarly to the 400th anniversary of homage, preceding the anniversary of Skarga’s death, to the dethroned tsar Vasil Szujski and his two brothers before the king in Warsaw in the seym (2011). And, as a matter of fact, Piotr Skarga was a declared supporter of Sigismund III’s politics, who he considered an ideal ruler with apparently good reason. The preacher and the king were bound by friendship lasting a quarter of century and by the support given by the former to the latter in the never-ending “grappling with the nation about the country”. In 1612 this “grappling” reached its climax when the chance, through the fault of the nobility, of saving the Republic of Poland from the fall, which was prophesied by Skarga and against which Sigismund wanted to protect it, was wasted. When the king was on late and unprepared trip to Moscow, Piotr Skarga, berating egoism of the nobility considered to be the main reason for this delay and lack of preparation, died. The death of the former royal preacher prophesying the end of the Republic of Poland coincided with wasting of the chance of subordinating and civilising Moscow, which determined – as it turned out – the fulfillment of the Skarga’s prophesy.