6 MILLENIUM
recorded outstanding events in the reigns of the Vasa kings in 35,000 tredeci-
mosyllabic verses. The Arian, Waclaw Potocki (1621-96), composed a lesser
quantity of epic verse of still greater literary and historical value, notably in his
Wojna okocimska (The War of Chocim, 1670). Wespazjan Kochowski
(1633-1700) combined Polish psalmody with important work in Latin on cur-
rent affairs. His Annalium Poloniae... Climacter Primus (1683), Secundus
(1688), and Tertius (1698) contain a mine of detailed information on the politi-
cal and international crises of his lifetime. The earlier Renaissance tradition of
social comment and satire was developed by Szymon Starowolski (1588-1656),
and by the two Opalinski brothers, Krzysztof (1610-56) and Lukasz (1612-84).
Personal memoirs, rich in social and political observation, were written by Jan
Pasek (1636-1701), Marcin Matuszewicz (d. 1784), and Jedrzej Kitowicz
(1728-1804).
The first historians in the modern sense appeared during the Enlightenment,
among them Adam Naruszewicz (1733—96), Bishop of Smolensk. Despite his
episcopal dignity, he 'subjected the workings of Providence to critical examina-
tion and launched a campaign for the collection and publication of historical
documents. Although he was preparing the ground for work on the whole of
Polish History, his own six volumes of Historia narodu polskiego (A History of
the Polish Nation), which began to appear in 1780, did not reach beyond the
fourteenth century. As with other monarchists of the pre-nationalist era, he
divided the past along dynastic lines. Naruszewicz identified the Piast Period
from earliest times to 1386, the Jagiellonian Period from 1387 to 1572, and the
period of Elective Monarchy from 1572 to his own day.^4 (See Diagram A.)
Naruszewicz died at the time when the Polish monarchy had just been
destroyed, and his simple, monarchist outlook could not long satisfy his succes-
sors. His mantle was assumed in due course by a man of a completely different
stamp. Joachim Lelewel (1786-1861) was an active republican, who in 1824 was
removed by the Tsarist authorities from the Chair of History at Wilno. In
1830—1, he was a Minister in Warsaw in the insurrectionary government.
Thereafter, he lived in exile in Brussels. In 1847, he was elected vice-president of
an International Democratic Society, relinquishing his office in the following
year to Karl Marx. Like Marx, Lelewel's view of history contained a strong mes-
sianic streak, but with time assumed a much more bizarre and speculative char-
acter. He elaborated a theory of Slavic 'Gminowiadztwo' (communal
self-government) whereby the Poles were seen to possess a natural predilection
for democracy, and the whole of their history was interpreted as a struggle for
freedom. Hence he divided Polish History into alternating periods of Liberty,
and of Servitude. The first period, from earliest times to the Testament of
Boleslaus the Wry-mouthed in 1138, was one of primitive self-government
where the immemorial customs of the race were preserved by the rule of benevo-
lent princes. In the second period from 1139 to the Statute of KoiSice of 1374, the
Polish nation fell beneath the tyranny of baronial rule, thereby losing control of
its destiny. From 1374 to the Third Partition of 1795, Liberty reasserted itself in