Smolensk War of 1632–1634 in Printed Polish Diaries. Structures of Relation and Narrative Perspectives

Abstract

Paper discusses three diaries written during the war of 1632–1634 between Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia, in which a tzar’s army attempted to retake the Smolensk fortress that was lost 21 years earlier. First of them was conducted by unknown member of king’s Vladislav IV Vasa chancellery, the second is an epistolary diary by Jan Moskorzowski, the secretary and officer of Lithuanian high commander Krzysztof Radziwiłł whose official post-war statement to the Commonwealth’s Seym is the third. Confrontation of these three relations from the same events is an occasion to compare its literary aspects.