(^360) SOBIESKI
of magnates from the south-eastern provinces whose interests, training, and atti-
tudes were quite distinct. Especially in the seventeenth century, these easterners
were preoccupied with the problems of the adjacent Ottoman world to a degree
which in Warsaw, Cracow, or Danzig would have appeared obsessive. What is
more, by virtue of their exceptional landed fortunes, unrivalled in any other part
of the Republic, and of their vast private military establishments, they were able to
impose their own concerns on the political life of the state as a whole. Perhaps the
best example of this class was Tomasz Zamoyski (1594-1638), Wojewoda of Kiev,
and briefly, like his more illustrious father, Crown Chancellor. Having acquired
vast estates in the region of Braclaw, he was trained from childhood in oriental
affairs. A friend of the Crimean Khan, Izlam Girej, who had spent a period of cap-
tivity at Zamosc, he had a fluent command of Turkish, Tartar, Arabic, and
Persian. He turned his father's Academy into a centre of oriental studies under its
learned rector, Jan Iwaszowicz, and Zamosc itself, with its Armenian and Jewish
colonies and its Persian carpet manufactory, into a hub of the eastern trade. He
was the father of Marysiefika's first husband.^4 Sobieski grew up in similar sur-
roundings. He was born in a thunderstorm during a Tartar raid. His maternal
grandfather, Hetman Zolkiewski, and his brother, were both beheaded on the bat-
tlefield by Tartars; and his uncle, Stanislaw Danillowicz, died in Tartar captivity.
He could not but be profoundly affected by the family vault at Zolkiew, and its
tombs of heroes, and its inscription: O quam dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
In 1653, he voluntarily submitted himself as a hostage in Bakhchisaray; in 1654, he
was in Istanbul; in 1657, he commanded the Republic's Tartar auxiliaries. No one
was more experienced in, or fascinated by the ways of the East than he. The ori-
ental tradition manifested itself in many forms. It inspired an exaggerated aware-
ness of the Republic's Catholicity, justifying anything and everything in terms of
the defence of Christendom. It inspired the fashionable dress and manners of the
day, making Turkish saddles, Tartar haircuts, and Persian rugs part of the equip-
ment of any self-respecting nobleman. It encouraged a conservative outlook on
social problems, stressing the individual's necessary submissiveness to Divine Will
and to an unchanging social order. It confused the direction of foreign affairs by
neglecting developments in Muscovy, Scandinavia, and Prussia, and by interpret-
ing the Republic's interest exclusively in terms of the Muslim menace. Most
significantly, it assumed that war prosecuted habitually and unremittingly, was the
chief and proper means of asserting the integrity and honour of the state.
Military affairs loomed large, therefore, partly from the King's natural incli-
nations and partly from the pressure of external events. As from 1676, both the
organization and the equipment of the army were reformed. In the infantry, the
number of pikemen was drastically reduced; the musketeers were rearmed with
short axes, which served simultaneously as musket stands. In the cavalry, the
dragoons were enlarged; the Cossack regiments were issued with chain mail,
being classified thereafter as 'armoured cavalry'; the light Tartar Horse was
issued with short lances. Special attention was paid to the mobility of the
artillery. All these changes were intended to provide fuller support for the strike-
c. jardin
(C. Jardin)
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