“You Want to Be Terrible, but You Flee...” On the Commentary to Jan Kochanowski’s Moscov Epinicions Cover Image

„Chcesz być groźnym, a uciekasz...” Nad komentarzem do epinikionów moskiewskich Jana Kochanowskiego
“You Want to Be Terrible, but You Flee...” On the Commentary to Jan Kochanowski’s Moscov Epinicions

Author(s): Roman Krzywy
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Jan Kochanowski; Kochanowski's Muscovy epinicions

Summary/Abstract: The author of the study tries to explain the origin of the information given by Jan Kochanowski about Ivan the Terrible’s escape to the far North of which the information is recurrently exalted in Kochanowski’s pieces on Polish Republic victories in the period of the wars with the Muscovy waged by Stephen Báthory. Contrary to former commentators, the author proves that however the piece of news is incongruous with the historical truth, it is yet not accidental. First, it is an effect of a propaganda, the exemplar of which Kochanowski might have found in earlier accounts and, second, it documents the information noise that accompanied the then war campaigns. The author also notices that the information about Ivan the Terrible’s alleged flight fused with the descriptions of Stephen Báthory’s wars and operated also on later writers who, when describing Polish-Russian relationships, tended to claim that the feared czars planned escape from the power of the Polish Republic rulers.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 185-194
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Polish