The reign of Henry de Valois was a sobering disappointment for Poles. Ten years of Stefan Batory on the throne of Krakow also not satisfied everyone. The monarch has repeatedly declared that he will gladly exchange the Polish crown for the Hungarian one, if the opportunity arises. In 1586, the magnates were fed up. They decided to choose a Pole to be king. And contrary to what history books teach, that's exactly what they did.
Nobody appreciates the historical role of Anna Jagiellonka. Even the author of her best biography, Maria Bogucka, had a devastating opinion of the queen. "Not very intelligent, not very pretty, petty, sometimes funny" - she wrote. It's hard to agree with this opinion.
Anna did not inherit the political genius of her mother, Bona Sforza. It is obvious. She made mistakes, she was too emotional and too naive. Yet, at the end of her life, she managed to achieve her main project. She brought the Polish throne back into the hands of the Jagiellonians.
Anna Jagiellonka. She was ready to do anything to get the throne back into the hands of the Jagiellonians.
The last male descendant of the dynasty on the distaff side was the Swedish prince Zygmunt Waza - grandson of Sigismund the Old and nephew of Sigismund Augustus. The boy was learning Polish language and customs since childhood. He grew up convinced that he was as much a Pole and a Jagiellon as a Swede. Anna was going to sacrifice everything to put the crown in his hands.
Even the Pope on her side
In 1576, before the election of Stefan Batory, she had no funds to do so. Zygmunt was not ready either:he was only ten years old. Now, a decade later, things were different. Anna started her efforts while Batory was still alive. In 1585, she wrote to the Pope for the first time. In 1586 she announced the project to the Habsburgs.
Most of all, however, she was reaching into the treasury more and more boldly. While she weighed every florin in her hand on a daily basis, she was not afraid to spend a penny on the election of Sigismund. Imperceptibly, almost the entire senate and the episcopate headed by the primate were in her camp. Anne was also supported by Holy Father Sixtus V.
All these supporters supported Zygmunt, because for them it was Jagiellon and a Pole. The castellan of Sochaczew, Stanisław Gostomski, declared:"I am joining the prince of His Majesty of Sweden, whom I also consider to be a Piast." The influential magnate Konstanty Wiśniowiecki went even further. He stated that Zygmunt Waza was for him like "King Augustus' son" .
Little Sigismund III Vasa. From childhood, he was educated to be the Polish king - and to be Jagiellonian.
Crap by historians
When Sigismund finally ascended the Polish throne in 1587, he was widely regarded as the continuator of the dynasty. Two of his sons were treated similarly. As heirs of Jagiełło, they were actually guaranteed victory in the elections. Władysław IV Waza was named after the famous winner from Grunwald.
Even in conflict with Zygmunt, Jan Zamoyski said directly in 1605: "as you are a descendant of Jagiełło, the crown of Your Majesty's sons will not pass away" .
This belief was common at the top of power. Primate Jan Wężyk stated firmly in 1632:"For so many centuries, only two dynasties, namely the Piasts and the Jagiellonians, were allowed to rule in our homeland." For him, there has never been any Vasa dynasty in Poland.
The historian Jan Szpaczyński adds:"Zygmunt III felt like a Vasa only as a Swedish king and he was only Vasa in Sweden, while in Poland, as the king of Poland and the great Lithuanian prince, he felt like a Jagiellonian.
Similar dynastic complications also occurred in almost every other country. The Habsburgs theoretically "died out" in 1740, with the seizure of power by a woman, Maria Theresa. Catherine the Great, who came to the Russian throne in 1762, was not only not a Romanov, but even a Russian. Yet no one is saying that these two great families died out in the eighteenth century.
It was the same in Poland. And only the nineteenth-century historians, despising the Swedish branch of the Jagiellonian family, created the myth about the ruling Vasa dynasty in Poland.
Source:
You can learn more about the confusing history of the Jagiellonian family in Kamil Janicki's book Ladies of the golden age (Horizon Label 2014). The article is based on the literature and materials collected by the author during the work on the book. You can buy it at a discount on empik.com.
We recommend:
A different version of the above article appeared in the latest issue of "Newsweek Historii" (2/2015).