Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)

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174 part one—chapter two

rank and le Cossacks and peasants. In September 1659, Vyhovs’kyj

resigned from his post and the Ukraine entered a period of civil war

and foreign intervention, labeled by future historians as the “Ruin.”

492

Jurij Xmel’nyc’kyj, elected the new Cossack hetman due to the pop-

ularity of his father, initially conrmed his allegiance to Poland but

then renewed the agreement with Moscow. In 1660, the conclusion

of peace with Sweden enabled a large Polish-Tatar oensive in the

Ukraine that resulted in a renewed allegiance of the Cossack hetman

and the capitulation of the Russian army, whose commander, Vasilij

Šeremetev, was to spend twenty years in Crimean captivity. In 1661,

Jurij Xmel’nyc’kyj and Mehmed IV Giray campaigned against Mus-

covy in the absence of Polish troops, which even led to suspitions in

Warsaw that the khan wished to subdue the Ukraine for his own.

493

In 1663, John Casimir led a major expedition against Muscovy that

lasted till the beginning of 1664. Crimean reinforcements again took

part in the campaign, commanded by two Giray princes and Dedesh

Agha. Although some Polish-Lithuanian forays reached the vicinity

of Moscow, the campaign did not bring any lasting result. To make

things worse, a conict erupted in Poland between the royal court and

Jerzy Lubomirski, the Crown marshal and eld hetman, and evolved

into a bloody civil war in the years 1665–1666. In 1665, John Casimir

notied his Tatar allies that he had to withdraw his best troops from

the Ukraine in order to ght the rebel. Lubomirski even tried to win

Tatar support for his case, but Mehmed IV Giray remained loyal to

the king.

494

e conict over the Ukraine (1666–1671)

With the lapse of time, both Warsaw and Moscow came to realize

that neither of them was able to control the whole of Ukraine. Since

1663, the country was in fact divided along the Dnieper into the west-

492

On the political events in the Ukraine in the years 1658–1659 and the subse-

quent period of the “Ruin,” see two recent monographs by Tetjana Jakovleva, Rujina

het’manščyny. Vid perejaslavs’koji rady-2 do Andrusivs’koji uhody (1659–1667 rr.)

(Kiev, 2003), and Piotr Kroll, Od ugody hadziackiej do Cudnowa. Kozaczyzna między

Rzecząpospolitą a Moskwą w latach 1658–1660 (Warsaw, 2008).

493

See Wójcik, “Rywalizacja polsko-tatarska o Ukrainę na przełomie lat 1660–1661,”

Przegląd Historyczny 45 (1954): 623–634; idem, Traktat andruszowski 1667 roku i jego

geneza, pp. 71–72.

494

Wójcik, Traktat andruszowski 1667 roku i jego geneza, pp. 214–215.

the crimean khanate & poland-lithuania (1523–1671) 175

ern part, controlled by Poland, and the eastern part, controlled by the

Russians, who also garrisoned Kiev. Each part was ruled by a separate

Cossack hetman, approved by the king and the tsar respectively. Pre-

liminary Polish-Russian negotiations, initiated already in 1662, were

resumpted in 1664, aer the failure of John Casimir’s Muscovian cam-

paign. e factor that rushed the royal court to hasten the negotia-

tions with Moscow was the deposal of Mehmed IV Giray, the loyal

Polish ally since 1654. Tensions between the khan and the Ottoman

grand vizier, Ahmed Köprülü, dated from 1663, when Mehmed IV

Giray refused to join the Ottoman campaign in Hungary. e khan

excused himself by the need to defend the Crimea against the Kalmyks

and sent his son in his stead. Even though the Tatars participated in

the Ottoman conquest of Érsekújvár (Slovakian Nové Zámky, Tur.

Uyvar) and raided Habsburg Moravia and Silesia, the khan’s refusal

to arrive in person was not forgotten. In March 1666, Mehmed IV

Giray was deposed and summoned to Istanbul, but he chose to take

refuge in Daghestan, where he was to die as a dervish in 1674. e new

khan, Adil Giray, descended from the Choban Girays, a side branch

of the dynasty, considered illegitimate by other family members and

extremely unpopolar among the Tatars, from the Shirins down to the

rank and le. e choice was not accidental: the alienation faced by

the new khan, who had spent most of his life in the Ottoman domains,

guaranteed his obedience towards the grand vizier, whom he owed the

throne.

495

Initially, Adil Giray assured John Casimir of his friendship and, in

June 1666, sent Dedesh Agha to Warsaw. On 3 September, the expe-

rienced Tatar diplomat, highly respected in Poland, swore on behalf

of his lord to maintain the anti-Muscovian alliance, just as the khan’s

predecessors, Islam and Mehmed Girays, had done.

496

Yet, Adil Giray

was soon approached by Petro Dorošenko, the Cossack hetman of the

“Polish” western Ukraine, who aimed to restore the Ukrainian unity

and independence. Disenchanted with both Moscow and Warsaw,

495

Smirnov, Krymskoe xanstvo, pp. 571–580; Halim Giray Sultan, Gülbün-i hânân,

pp. 67–68, 73–74, 226–227; on the Choban Girays, cf. n. 388 above.

496

Wójcik, Traktat andruszowski 1667 roku i jego geneza, pp. 221–222; Dedesh

Agha brought to Warsaw several letters of the khan, the Crimean vizier, and the

nureddin, all dated in Baghchasaray on 18 June 1666 and addressed to the king

and the Crown chancellor; the envoy delivered the letters at a solemn audience on

11 August; see Bibl. Czart., ms. 160 (Teki Naruszewicza), pp. 603–611; for the text of

his oath, see Document 65.

176 part one—chapter two

Dorošenko developed a plan to base his rule on the cooperation with

Baghchasaray and Istanbul.

On 19 December 1666, a regiment of Polish troops commanded by

Colonel Sebastian Machowski (the former envoy to Istanbul) was unex-

pectedly attacked and destroyed at Brajiliv (Pol. Braiłów or Brahiłów)

by a Cossack-Tatar army. Machowski and a number of Polish ocers

were taken prisoner by the Tatar commander, Nureddin Devlet Giray.

497

Aer the shocking news reached Warsaw, John Casimir ordered the

Polish-Lithuanian commissioners, who had been negotiationg a settle-

ment with Moscow, to immediately reach an agreement before their

Russian partners could learn of the Polish defeat. On 30 January 1667,

an armistice was signed in the border village of Andrusovo, ending

the war that had begun in 1654. e armistice was to last till 1680 and

was subject to prolongation. It conrmed the division of the Ukraine

along the Dnieper (Kiev was to be restored to Poland by 1669) and the

cession of eastern Lithuanian territories, along with Smolensk, con-

quered by the tsar in 1654. Both Warsaw and Moscow knew that their

reconciliation must provoke negative reactions in Baghchasaray and

Istanbul. Nevertheless, the agreement stipulated that the king and the

tsar should formally invite the khan and the sultan to join the peace,

and only if the oer was rejected, to form a military alliance against

the Muslim neighbors.

498

In the following months, Warsaw and Baghchasaray blamed each

other for the rupture of their alliance. Admittedly, the Tatars were

rst to attack in December 1666, but they had been aware of the

Polish-Russian negotiations long before the signing of the Truce of

Andrusovo.

499

As the diplomatic exchange proved futile, a Tatar-

497

See Wiesław Majewski, “Podhajce—letnia i jesienna kampania 1667 r.,” Studia i

Materiały do Historii Wojskowości, vol. 6, pt. 1 (1960): 47–99, esp. p. 50. e identity

of the Tatar commander, usually unnamed in the Polish historiography, can be estab-

lished on the basis of the letter of the Polish vice-chancellor, Jędrzej Olszowski, to the

Crimean vizier, Islam Agha; see Wójcik, “Mediacja tatarska między Polską a Turcją

w roku 1672,” Przegląd Historyczny 53 (1962): 32–50, esp. p. 35; see also the khan’s

letter to the king dated in Redjeb 1078 A.H. (17 December 1667–15 January 1668),

referring to the past events and announcing Machowski’s release; see AGAD, AKW,

Dz. tat., k. 64, t. 3, nos. 531–532. On Devlet Giray, the khan’s nephew and nureddin,

cf. Josef Matuz, “Eine Beschreibung des Khanats der Krim aus dem Jahre 1669,” Acta

Orientalia (Havniae) 28 (1964): 129–151, esp. p. 133.

498

Wójcik, Traktat andruszowski 1667 roku i jego geneza, pp. 249–257.

499

For a discussion of this issue, see Wójcik, Między traktatem andruszowskim a

wojną turecką. Stosunki polsko-rosyjskie 1667–1672 (Warsaw, 1968), pp. 13–18 and

44–46.

the crimean khanate & poland-lithuania (1523–1671) 177

Cossack foray commanded by Batır-shah Mirza, who had wintered in

the Ukraine, set out in May 1667 to raid Volhynia.

500

In October 1667,

a large Cossack-Tatar army, commanded by Hetman Petro Dorošenko

and the khan’s brother, Qalga Qırım Giray, besieged a much weaker

Polish army at Pidhajci (Pol. Podhajce). e Polish defence, organized

by the Crown eld hetman (and future king), Jan Sobieski, proved suc-

cessful and forced the besiegers to negotiations. In result, two separate

agreements were reached, like at Zboriv in 1649: a Polish-Crimean

(16 October) and a Polish-Cossack one (19 October).

501

e Polish-Crimean instrument of peace was prepared in one com-

mon version in Polish. It commenced with a hypocritical preamble

declaring that: “His Majesty, [. . .] Qalga Qırım Giray, has entered the

domains of His Royal Majesty [. . .] with no other intention but to

conrm and renew [. . .] the ancient treaties with His Royal Majesty.”

Having invoked the old friendship reigning in the times of Islam III

and Mehmed IV Girays, the document provided for mutual remission

of past wrongs and declared that any future conicts should be solved

by the means of diplomacy. Colonel Machowski and other Polish sol-

diers, taken prisoner in December 1666, were to be set free; in return,

the Tatars imprisoned on various occassions in Poland were to return

to the Crimea. While the Tatars declared military assistance against

royal enemies, in return they were promised the customary gis in

annual installments. As the dispatch of the rst installment was sub-

ject to conrmation by the Polish-Lithuanian Diet, two Polish ocers

502

were to remain in the Crimea as guarantees of the gis’ delivery. In

the meantime, the Tatars were not to enter the Ukraine without royal

permission. e Crimean side also promised to restrain the raids of

the Nogays, even those who did not acknowledge the khan’s authority,

like many members of the clans Oraq-oghlu and Or-Membet-oghlu,

and many inhabitants of Budjak. Although the Cossack issues were to

be further discussed in direct Polish-Cossack negotiations, the Polish-

Crimean instrument stipulated that the Cossacks should be granted

amnesty when they return under the royal suzerainty. Finally, the

Tatars engaged that they would not commit any harm on their way

home; nonetheless, like in the years 1649 and 1653, they were tacitly

500

Majewski, “Podhajce,” pp. 61 and 67–68.

501

Ibidem, pp. 89–93; Wójcik, Jan Sobieski 1629–1696 (Warsaw, 1983), pp. 139–144.

502

ese were Lieutenant [porucznik] Mikołaj Złotnicki and Standard-bearer

[chorąży] Adam Łychowski; cf Document 69, n. 1.

178 part one—chapter two

authorized to take along the captives whom they already held. For

understandable reasons, the Polish authorities did not want to enter

the latter provision into the treaty, but Sobieski issued a separate safe-

conduct, ordering local military commanders to let the Tatars pass

undisturbed along with their human cargo.

503

e mutually accepted text was endorsed by the Polish hetman on

behalf of King John Casimir and the whole Commonwealth, and by

the qalga on behalf of Khan Adil Giray, his successor not mentioned

by name, and the whole Crimea. One copy, corroborated by Sobieski

and eight Polish ocers, was delivered to the Crimean negotiators.

504

Another copy, corroborated with seals by Qırım Giray, two other

Giray princes, and seven Crimean dignitaries, is today preserved in the

Polish archives.

505

In addition to the exchange of corroborated instru-

ments, the agreement was conrmed by solemn oaths taken by the

Crimean and Polish negotiators. e texts of the oaths were recorded

and authenticated by Sobieski with his signature. While the oath of the

Crimean negotiators merely referred to the text of the written instru-

ment, the Polish negotiators, apparently on Crimean request, made

two additional engagements: they promised that if the Commonwealth

were to convert its armistice with Muscovy into a permanent peace,

the khan would be notied in advance so that his representative could

attend the negotiations; besides, they engaged that the Polish troops

would not enter the Ukraine before the Diet endorsed the dispatch of

gis to the khan.

506

e reconciliation reached at Pidhajci was prompty

conrmed by the khan in a letter brought to Warsaw by a Tatar envoy,

Abid Agha, early in the year 1668.

507

503

See his order, dated 18 October 1667, forbidding to disturb the Tatars on their

way home and conrming their right to take along their captives; published in Acta

Historica res gestas Poloniae illustrantia, vol. 2: Acta Joannis Sobieski. Edited by

F. Kluczycki, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Cracow, 1880), p. 290.

504

For the names of the Polish signatories, see Document 66, n. 1; the Polish instru-

ment, whose original was taken to the Crimea, is not preserved.

505

See Document 66.

506

For the authenticated texts of the oaths, brought by Sobieski to Warsaw and

submitted at the Senate meeting on 13 March 1668, see Documents 67 and 68.

507

See Adil Giray’s letter to the king, dated in Redjeb 1078 A.H. (17 December

1667–15 January 1668), announcing the release of Colonel Machowski and other

Polish prisoners from the Crimean captivity, and referring to the earlier departure

of Dedesh Agha, who had been sent in order to collect the promised royal gis; see

AGAD, AKW, Dz. tat., k. 64, t. 3, nos. 531–532.

the crimean khanate & poland-lithuania (1523–1671) 179

In spite of the ocial reconciliation, the Polish statesmen did

not trust the Tatars and Cossacks. Two months aer Pidhajci, on

14 December 1667, a supplement to the Truce of Andrusovo was

signed in Moscow, providing for Polish-Russian military coopera-

tion against the rebel Cossacks and joint defense of both Polish and

Russian parts of the Ukraine against the Tatars and Turks. Not unex-

pectedly, the treaty pushed Hetman Dorošenko even further towards

seeking Muslim protection.

508

e Diet convened in Warsaw, which was to conrm the agreement

of Pidhajci, was interrupted on 7 March 1668 due to an internal strife

between the court and the malcontents. John Casimir, disheartened

by the recent civil war and constant opposition, decided to abdicate

though he postponed this act until September. Fearing that the break-

ing of the Diet and internal chaos could provoke a new Tatar raid, the

Commonwealth’s authorities reassured Dedesh Agha, who constantly

traveled between Baghchasaray and Warsaw, of their peaceful inten-

tions. Even though Dedesh returned to the Crimea without the prom-

ised royal gis, both sides continued the release of captured prisoners.

Moreover, on 15 April 1668, Adil Giray solemnly swore to observe

the peace in the presence of the Polish guarantees from Pidhajci, still

detained as residents in the Crimea until the payment of the royal

gis.

509

e khan also issued an instrument, in which he recalled the past

friendship from the times of Islam III Giray and Mehmed IV Giray,

and invoked his oath conrming the articles from Pidhajci. He spe-

cically promised to release the captives taken in the previous raids of

the nureddin, Devlet Giray (December 1666), and Batır-shah Mirza

(May–June 1667), and to forbid the sale of Polish soldiers and noble-

men, along with their families, as slaves to the Ottoman lands.

510

regard to the Cossacks, Adil Giray envisioned that they would reas-

sert their allegiance towards the king and remain under joint Polish-

Crimean patronage. In return, they were not to be harassed by the

508

Cf. Wójcik, Między traktatem andruszowskim a wojną turecką, pp. 105–107 and

124–125.

509

Ibidem, pp. 180–181; see also the letter, referring to the khan’s oath and dated 17

April 1668, sent to Sobieski by the Polish residents in the Crimea, Mikołaj Złotnicki

and Adam Łychowski; published in Acta Historica res gestas Poloniae illustrantia,

vol. 2: Acta Joannis Sobieski, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 356–358.

510

It is worth noting that commoners were not mentioned.

180 part one—chapter two

Polish troops. Yet, if the Cossacks rioted again, the Tatars would assist

the king in routing the rebels.

511

e years 1667–1672 brought a genuine rapprochement between

Warsaw and Moscow. Both courts felt endangered by a possible

Ottoman-Crimean expansion in the Ukraine. While the Common-

wealth was slowly recovering aer the previous calamities, Russia was

weakened by the religious conict over the Church reform and the

great Don Cossack uprising, led by Stepan Razin. Moreover, Afanasij

Ordin-Naščokin, the inuential Russian statesman of the time, argued

for a peace with Poland-Lithuania in order to focus on the struggle

against Sweden for the access to the Baltic Sea. All these considerations

resulted in a more or less loyal cooperation vis-à-vis Baghchasaray.

When the Crimean envoy, Abid Agha, arrived at Warsaw early in the

year 1668, he was further dispatched to Moscow in order to negotiate

a tripartite treaty.

512

A lasting peace with both Warsaw and Moscow was contrary to the

Crimean tradition as it deprived the Tatars of prospective spoils from

raiding the territories of their northern neighbors. Nevertheless, fear-

ing isolation, Adil Giray claimed that general peace was also his desire.

In the spring of 1670, Crimean envoys in Moscow, Sefer Agha and

Shahtemir Atalıq, issued an instrument of peace on behalf of the khan.

Invoking the recent Crimean-Polish pacication at Pidhajci, negoti-

ated between Qalga Qırım Giray and Grand Marshal Sobieski (büyük

marşalqa Sabiqa), and the recent Polish-Muscovian treaty of 1667, the

envoys expressed the desire of their lord, the khan, to become “like a

third brother” (üçünci qarındaş gibi) of the two “great padishahs:” the

king and the tsar.

513

e Crimean-Muscovian treaty was conrmed by

a solemn instrument of peace, issued by Tsar Alexis in Moscow on

7 May 1670. In analogy to the Tatar instrument, the Russian docu-

ment stipulated that Adil Giray would become a third friend and close

511

See Document 69.

512

Cf. Wójcik, Między traktatem andruszowskim a wojną turecką, pp. 20–21 and

180–185. Formally, the dispatch of Abid Agha to Moscow occured on the request of

the khan, who had asked the Polish king to press the tsar to send the customary gis

to Baghchasaray; see the above quoted letter of Adil Giray to John Casimir; AGAD,

AKW, Dz. tat., k. 64, t. 3, nos. 531–532. Yet, Warsaw’s obvious intention was to dis-

play its good relations with Moscow rather than help the khan to pressure the tsar.

513

See RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 59; published in Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago

xanstva, pp. 584–592; its Russian translation is published in Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix

snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp. 163–169. e instrument, composed in Crimean

Tatar, is referred to by the term zapis, a loanword from Russian.

the crimean khanate & poland-lithuania (1523–1671) 181

neighbor of the two remaining monarchs.

514

Alexis duly sent a copy

of his document to Warsaw, where it was translated into Polish in

July 1670.

515

Neither the rapprochement between Warsaw and Moscow nor their

tripartite treaty with Baghchasaray deterred Petro Dorošenko from

seeking a way to unite the whole Ukraine under his rule. Already

in 1667, Dorošenko secured the protection of the kaymakam, Kara

Mustafa Pasha, who substituted for the grand vizier, Ahmed Köprülü,

then ghting in Crete. In August 1667, Sultan Mehmed IV renewed

the peace with Poland and issued a new ‘ahdname, but in a separate

letter he warned the Polish king against attacking the Cossacks, who

had asked for Ottoman protection.

516

In 1668, Dorošenko crossed the

Dnieper and killed Ivan Brjuxovec’kyj, the hetman of the “Russian”

Ukraine, although he failed to secure his conquest against the Russian

troops. On 1 June 1669, Mehmed IV issued a formal diploma (berat),

investing Dorošenko with the whole of Ukraine as the Ottoman vassal,

equal in status to the rulers of Moldavia and Wallachia.

517

e news of

Dorošenko’s having become an Ottoman vassal served as a convenient

pretext for Russian diplomats who in the fall of 1669 refused to restore

Kiev to Poland, as had been stipulated by the Truce of Andrusovo,

arguing that they could not allow the city’s capture by the Muslims.

518

To be sure, the Commonwealth did not acknowledge the Porte’s

claim to protect the Cossacks. In September 1670, Warsaw invested

514

i vam bratu našemu Adil Gireevu carevu veličestvu byti s oboimi nami velikimi

gosudari v opčej sosedstvennoj družbe, jako tret’emu drugu i bližajšemu sosedu; cf. a

Russian copy of the document, issued on 27 April 7178 according to the Byzantine

calendar, published in Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp.

156–163, esp. p. 157.

515

Cf. Wójcik, Między traktatem andruszowskim a wojną turecką, p. 242; a copy

of the tsar’s document along with the Russian translation of the oath taken by the

Crimean envoys in Moscow in conrmation of their instrument (zapis), are pre-

served in the Polish archives along with their contemporary Polish translations; see

AGAD, AKW, Dz. tat., k. 60, t. 32, nos. 34–35. For the texts in Russian, published

aer the copies held in Moscow, see Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix snošenij. . . . Edited by

F. Laškov, pp. 156–163 and 168–169.

516

For the sultan’s letter regarding the Cossacks, followed by a similarly worded let-

ter by Kara Mustafa, cf. Abrahamowicz, Katalog dokumentów tureckich, pp. 351–352

and 355. e ‘ahdname of 1667 is published in Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplo-

matic Relations, pp. 476–489.

517

Cf. Kołodziejczyk, “Tertium non datur? Turec’ka al’ternatyva v zovnišnij poli-

tyci kozac’koji deržavy,” in: Hadjac’ka unija 1658 roku (Kiev, 2008): 67–80, esp. pp.

72–74.

518

Wójcik, Między traktatem andruszowskim a wojną turecką, pp. 206 and 209.

182 part one—chapter two

Myxajlo Xanenko as the new Cossack hetman and announced

Dorošenko’s deposal, though it was easier said than done. Somewhat

unexpectedly, the new Polish protégé was acknowledged by Adil Giray,

who did not want to risk an open conict with both Warsaw and Mos-

cow. Besides, the khan was frustrated by Dorošenko’s communicating

with the Porte over his head. is independent move cost Adil Giray

his throne. In May 1671, the Porte replaced him with Selim Giray, a

son of the former khan, Bahadır Giray.

519

A few months later, when

Sobieski entered the Ukraine at the head of the Polish troops in order

to support Xanenko, he faced a new Cossack-Tatar coalition between

Dorošenko and Selim Giray. e Porte, liberated from other military

concerns aer the conclusion of the Cretan war in 1669, ordered the

governor of Očakiv, Khalil Pasha, to assist Dorošenko and resolved to

start in the following year an invasion of Poland-Lithuania on a full

scale.

520

Conclusion

Not unlike in Renaissance Italy, the alliances in early modern East-

ern Europe typically followed a “checkboard pattern,” to use the term

coined by Garrett Mattingly.

521

In the long period between 1523 and

519

Ibidem, pp. 252–253; cf. Matuz, “Eine Beschreibung des Khanats der Krim aus

dem Jahre 1669,” pp. 133–134. In this context, it seems that Wójcik overestimates the

role of the Crimean-Muscovian treaty of 1670 in determining Warsaw’s isolation in

its approaching confrontation with the Porte; cf. ibidem, p. 245. When the Ottoman-

Crimean army invaded Poland in 1672 and the tsar chose to abstain from the conict,

he could not base his decision on the treaty of 1670 because the latter’s signatory, Adil

Giray, was no longer in power.

520

Cf. Kołodziejczyk, Podole pod panowaniem tureckim. Ejalet Kamieniecki 1672–

1699 (Warsaw, 1994), pp. 51–52; on the Ukrainian campaign of 1671, see Marek

Wagner, Wojna polsko-turecka w latach 1672–1676, vol. 1 (Zabrze, 2009), pp. 77–84.

521

Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (New York, 1988), p. 69. In his now

classical book, published for the rst time in 1955, Mattingly claimed that this pattern

had rst developed in Italy, emancipated from religious and moral constraints due

to the prolonged secular struggle between the two heads of Western Christendom.

Also a Polish scholar, Władysław Pociecha, credited the Italian wife of Sigismund I,

Bona Sforza, for the emancipation of Polish foreign policy from the Habsburg and

papal inuence; cf. idem, Królowa Bona (1494–1557). Czasy i ludzie odrodzenia, vol. 2

(Poznań, 1949), p. 210. To the present author, the claim that realpolitik was invented

in Western Europe and only later aped in the rest of the world seems ungrounded

and merely reecting Western biases. Many documents, also edited and discussed in

the present volume, prove that the Lithuanian rulers conducted a pragmatic realpolitik

already in the 14th and 15th centuries.

the crimean khanate & poland-lithuania (1523–1671) 183

1671, the Crimean Khanate oen played a decisive role in the con-

frontation between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy by supporting one

or the other side.

Predictably, the party, whom the Tatars supported, tended to

praise them as valuable allies, while the opposite side branded them

as “greedy barbarians.” ese notions and prejudices found their way

to the national historiographies and are still detectable today. e

weaker was Poland-Lithuania in its competition with Muscovy, the

more oen the Tatars came to its rescue, earning the praise of Pol-

ish contemporary statesmen as well as modern historians. No wonder

that the general assessment of the Crimean Khanate has been more

favorable in the Polish historiography than in the Russian one. In the

15th and 16th centuries, the khans alternatively supported one Slavic

neighbor against the other. But with the rise of Muscovy at the cost of

the Volgine and Siberian khanates, and especially during the mid-17th

century crisis that almost erased Poland-Lithuania from the map, the

Crimean Khanate turned into “the trusted ally in the struggle against

Muscovy”—to quote a 20th-century Polish historian.

522

In a recent reassessment of the sixteenth-century Crimean foreign

policy, Aleksandr Filjuškin invokes the aphorism coined by the great

Russian historian, Sergej Solov’ev: “the Crimean auction” (krymskij

aukcion). e term refers to situations when the Crimean military

support had to be “purchased” with the gis, sent from Vilnius and

Moscow, and the khan chose whom to support by simply measuring

the material value of the received gis. Nevertheless, Filjuškin admits

that the khan’s decision depended not merely on the gis’ value, but

on the notion of the balance of power as well.

523

Also the Russian his-

torians who studied the seventeenth-century Crimean policy and were

hardly favorable in their opinions on the Tatars admitted that political

motives had been no less important than short term material gains in

motivating Baghchasaray’s decisions.

524

Among the rank and le Tatars, economic concerns certainly domi-

nated in motivating their raids against the Slavic neighbors, but for the

522

Wójcik, Traktat andruszowski 1667 roku i jego geneza, p. 63.

523

Filjuškin, “Proekty russko-krymskogo voennogo sojuza,” p. 309; on the term

krymskij aukcion, see Sergej Solov’ev, Istorija Rossii s drevnejšix vremen, vol. 6, in:

idem, Sočinenija v vosemnadcati knigax, book 3 (Moscow, 1989), p. 580.

524

Cf. Novosel’skij, Bor’ba Moskovskogo gosudarstva s Tatarami, p. 9, and Sanin,

Otnošenija Rossii i Ukrainy s Krymskim xanstvom v seredine XVII veka, p. 50.