Born intoPolish nobility, Sobieski was educated at theJagiellonian University and toured Europe in his youth. As a soldier and later commander, he fought in theKhmelnytsky Uprising, theRusso-Polish War and during the Swedish invasion known as theDeluge. Sobieski demonstrated his military prowess during the war against theOttoman Empire and established himself as a leading figure inPoland and Lithuania. In 1674, he was elected monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth following the sudden and unexpected death ofKing Michael.
Sobieski's 22-year reign marked a period of the Commonwealth's stabilization, much needed after the turmoil of previous conflicts.[1] Popular among his subjects, he was an able military leader, most famously for his victory over the Ottoman Empire at theBattle of Vienna in 1683.[2] The defeatedOttomans named Sobieski the "Lion ofLechistan", and the Pope hailed him as the saviour ofWestern Christendom.[3] Suffering from poor health and obesity in later life, Sobieski died in 1696 and was buried atWawel Cathedral inKraków. He was succeeded byAugustus II of Poland and Saxony.
By 26 May 1656, he received the position of thechorąży koronny (Standard-bearer of the Crown).[14] During thethree-day-long battle of Warsaw of 1656, Sobieski commanded a 2,000-man strong regiment ofTatar cavalry.[14][15] He took part in a number of engagements over the next two years, including theSiege of Toruń in 1658.[14] In 1659, he was elected a deputy to theSejm (Polish parliament), and was one of the Polish negotiators of theTreaty of Hadiach with the Cossacks.[14] In 1660, he took part in the last offensive against the Swedes in Prussia, and was rewarded with the office ofstarost ofStryj.[14] Soon afterward he took part in the war against the Russians, participating in theBattle of Slobodyshche andBattle of Lyubar, and later that year he again was one of the negotiators of a new treaty with the Cossacks (theTreaty of Cudnów).[14]
Through personal connections, he became a strong supporter of the French faction in the Polish royal court, represented by QueenMarie Louise Gonzaga. His pro-French allegiance was reinforced in 1665, when he marriedMarie Casimire Louise de la Grange d'Arquien and was promoted to the rank of the Crown GrandMarshal.[4]
In 1662, he was again elected a deputy to the Sejm, and took part in the work on reforming the military. He was also a member of the Sejm in 1664 and 1665.[14] In between he participated in the Russian campaign of 1663.[14] Sobieski remained loyal to the King during theLubomirski Rebellion of 1665–66, though it was a difficult decision for him.[14][16] He participated in the Sejm of 1665, and after some delays, accepted the prestigious office of theMarshal of the Crown on 18 May that year.[16] Around late April or early May 1666 he received another high office of the Commonwealth, that of theField Crown Hetman.[16] Soon afterward, he was defeated at theBattle of Mątwy, and signed theAgreement of Łęgonice on 21 July, which ended the Lubomirski Rebellion.[16]
In October 1667, he achieved another victory over the Cossacks ofPetro Doroshenko and their Crimean Tatar allies in theBattle of Podhajce during thePolish–Cossack–Tatar War (1666–71).[13] This allowed him to regain his image as a skilled military leader.[16] Later that year, in November, his first child,James Louis Sobieski was born in Paris.[16] On 5 February 1668, he achieved the rank of Grand Hetman of the Crown, the highest military rank in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and thereby thede factocommander-in-chief of the entire Polish Army.[13] Later that year he supported the French candidacy ofLouis, Grand Condé for the Polish throne, and after this candidacy fell apart,Philip William, Elector Palatine.[16] Following the election ofMichał Korybut Wiśniowiecki he joined the opposition faction; he and his allies helpedveto several sejms (including the coronation ones), and his attitude once again resulted in him losing popularity among the regularszlachta.[16] While his pro-French stance in politics alienated some, his military victories against invading Tatars in 1671 helped him gain other allies.[16]
The year 1672 saw internal politics destabilizing the Commonwealth, as the pro-French faction of Sobieski and pro-court faction of King Michał formed twoconfederations, which despitemajor Ottoman incursions in the south seemed more concerned with one another than with uniting to defend the country.[17] The court faction called openly for confiscation of his estates and dismissal from office, and declared him an "enemy of the state".[17] This division culminated in the humiliatingTreaty of Buchach, where the Commonwealth was forced to cede territories to the Ottomans, but promise an annual tribute.[18] Sobieski eventually succeeded in balancing politics and national defense, and a combination of his military victories over the invaders, and successful negotiations at the Sejm in April 1673, led to a compromise in which the court faction dropped its demands and challenges against him.[17]
In the year 1672, thePolish-Lithuanian Tatars rose up in open rebellion against the Commonwealth. This was the widely rememberedLipka rebellion. Thanks to the efforts of Sobieski, who was held in great esteem by the Tatar soldiers, many of the Lipkas seeking asylum and service in the Ottoman Army returned to his command.
On 11 November 1673, Sobieski added a major victory to his list, this time defeating the Ottomans in theBattle of Khotyn and capturing thefortress located there.[13] The news of the battle coincided with the death of King Michal the day before the battle.[13] This made Sobieski one of the leading figures of the state, so on 19 May the following year, he was elected monarch of theCommonwealth.[4] His candidacy was almost universally supported, with only a dozen or so members of the diet opposing him (mainly centered around magnates of the LithuanianPac family).[17] In light of the war, requiring Sobieski to be on the front lines, the coronation ceremony was significantly delayed – he was crowned John III almost two years later, on 2 February 1676.[4][17]
Though Poland-Lithuania was at that time the largest and one of the most populous states of Europe,[19] Sobieski became a king of a country devastated by almost half a century of constant war.[20] The treasury was almost empty and the court had little to offer the powerful magnates, who often allied themselves with foreign courts rather than the state.[21][22]
Sobieski had a number of long-term plans, including establishing his own dynasty in the Commonwealth, regaining lost territories, and strengthening the country through various reforms.[22][23] One of his ambitions was to unify Christian Europe in a crusade to drive the Turks out of Europe.[23] At the beginning of his reign, however, the Polish state was in dire fiscal straits and faced military threats to the north. KingLouis XIV of France promised to mediate a truce between the Ottomans and Poland so that Sobieski could focus his attentions on Prussia. The negotiations ended in failure and Sobieski's Baltic goals had to be tempered by the immediate reality of the Ottoman threat to the south.[18][22][24]
In the autumn of 1674, he recommenced the war against the Ottomans and managed to recapture a number of cities and fortresses includingBratslav,Mogilev, andBar, which re-established a strongly fortified line defending Poland's southern border in Ukraine.[17] In 1675, Sobieski defeated a Turkish and Tatar offensive aiming atLviv.[17][25] In 1676, the Tatars began a counter-offensive and crossed theDneper, but could not retake the strategic town ofŻórawno, and a peace treaty (theTreaty of Żurawno) was signed soon afterwards.[17] Although Kamieniec Podolski and much of Podolia remained a part of the Ottoman Empire, Poland gained the return of the towns ofBila Tserkva andPavoloch.[17]
The treaty with the Ottomans began a period of peace that was much needed for the repair of the country and strengthening of the royal authority. Sobieski managed to reform the Polish army completely.[24] The army was reorganised into regiments, the infantry finally droppedpikes, replacing them withbattle-axes, and thePolish cavalry adoptedhussar anddragoon formations.[26] Sobieski also greatly increased the number of cannon and introduced new artillery tactics.[26]
Sobieski wanted to conquerPrussia withSwedish troops and French support.[24] Regaining control of this autonomous province was in the Commonwealth's best interest, and Sobieski also hoped for it to become part of his family domain.[22] To this end he made the secretTreaty of Jaworów (1675), but he achieved nothing. The wars with the Ottoman Empire were not decisively won by the Commonwealth,the ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia madetreaties with France,Prussia defeated the Swedish invasion, and Sobieski's plans for the Commonwealth's own military campaign against Prussia was opposed by Commonwealth magnates, many of them taking the Prussian side.[17][22][25][27][28] Backed by Brandenburg andAustria, internal enemies of Sobieski even planned to dethrone him and electCharles of Lorraine.[27]
The French-Prussian treaty of 1679 meant that Sobieski lost the major foreign ally for his planned campaign against Prussia; consequently, he started to distance himself from the pro-French faction, which, in turn, resulted in the cooling down of the Polish-French relations. During the Sejm of 1683, the French ambassador was expelled for involvement with a plan to dethrone Sobieski, which definitely marked the end of the Polish-French alliance.[27] At the same time Sobieski made peace with the pro-Habsburg faction and started to gravitate towards an alliance with Austria.[27][28] This did not end the existence of strong internal opposition to Sobieski; however, it changed a number of allegiances, and further opposition was temporarily weakened through the king's successful political maneuvering, including granting the Grand Hetman office to one of the opposition's chief leaders,Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski.[27][29]
Conscious that Poland lacked allies and risked war against most of its neighbours (a situation similar to the Deluge), Sobieski allied himself by 1683 withLeopold I, of theHoly Roman Empire.[27] Both sides promised to come to one's another aid if their capitals were threatened.[22] The alliance was signed by royal representatives on 31 March 1683 and ratified by the Emperor and Polish parliament within weeks.[30] Although aimed directly against the Ottomans and indirectly against France, it had the advantage of gaining internal support for the defense of Poland's southern borders.[27] This was a beginning of what would become theHoly League, championed byPope Innocent XI to preserveChristendom.[31]
Meantime, in the spring of 1683, royal spies uncovered Ottoman preparations for a military campaign. Sobieski feared that the target might be the Polish cities ofLwów andKraków.[13] To counteract the threat, Sobieski began the fortification of the cities and ordered universal military conscription.[13] In July, the Austrian envoy asked for Polish assistance.[32] Soon afterward, the Polish army started massing for an expedition against the Ottomans, and in August was joined by Bavarians and Saxon allies under Charles of Lorraine.[30][32]
Sobieski's greatest success came in 1683, with his victory at theBattle of Vienna, in joint command of Polish, Austrian and German troops, against the invading Ottomans underKara Mustafa.[27][32] Upon reaching Vienna on 12 September, with the Ottoman Army close to breaching the walls, Sobieski ordered a full attack. In the early morning, the united army of about 65,000[33]–76,000[32] men (including 22,000,[33]–27,000 Poles[27]) attacked a Turkish force of about 143,000[33][32] men. At about 5:00 pm, after observing the infantry battle from theKahlenberg hilltop, Sobieski led the Polishhusaria cavalry along with Austrians and Germans in a massive charge down the hillside. Soon, the Ottoman battle line was broken and the Ottoman forces scattered in disarray.[34] At 5:30 pm, Sobieski entered the deserted tent of Kara Mustafa and the Battle of Vienna ended.[30][32]
The Pope and other foreign dignitaries hailed Sobieski as the "Savior of Vienna and Western European civilization."[35] In a letter to his wife, he wrote, "All the common people kissed my hands, my feet, my clothes; others only touched me, saying: 'Ah, let us kiss so valiant a hand!'"[36]
The war against the Ottomans was not yet over, and Sobieski continued the campaign with theBattle of Párkány on 7–9 October.[37] After early victories, the Polish found themselves a junior partner in the Holy League, gaining no lasting territorial or political rewards.[37] The prolonged and indecisivewar also weakened Sobieski's position at home.[37] For the next four years Poland would blockade the key fortress atKamenets, and OttomanTatars would raid the borderlands. In 1691, Sobieski undertook another expedition toMoldavia, with slightly better results, but still with no decisive victories.[37]
Although the King spent much time on the battlefields, which could suggest a good state of health, towards the end of his life he became seriously and increasingly ill.[38]
King John III Sobieski died inWilanów,Poland on 17 June 1696 from a sudden heart attack.[38] His wife,Marie Casimire Louise, died in 1716 inBlois, France, and her body was returned to Poland. They are interred together inWawel Cathedral,Kraków,[39] although his heart is interred separately in the Church of the Transfiguration inWarsaw, Poland.[40][41] He was succeeded byAugustus II.[42]
Sobieski is remembered in Poland as a "hero king", victor at Vienna who defeated the Ottoman threat, an image that became particularly well recognized after his story was told in many works of 19th-century literature.[43] In thePolish Biographical Dictionary he is described as "an individual above his contemporaries, but still one of them"; an oligarch and a magnate, interested in personal wealth and power.[43] His ambitions for the most part were instilled in him by his beloved wife, whom he undoubtedly loved more than any throne (when being forced to divorce her and marry the former Queen as a condition to gain the throne, he immediately refused the throne) and tended to obey, at times blindly.[44][45]
He failed to reform the ailing Commonwealth, and to secure the throne for his heir.[43] At the same time, he displayed high military prowess, he was well educated and literate, and a patron of science and arts. He supported the astronomerJohannes Hevelius, mathematicianAdam Adamandy Kochański and the historian and poetWespazjan Kochowski. HisWilanów Palace became the first of many palaces that would dot the lands of the Commonwealth over the next two centuries.[43]
In 2024, the city of Vienna rejected a monument to King Jan Sobieski due to concerns about Islamophobia andanti-Turkish sentiment.[46]
Official title(in Latin):Ioannes III, Dei Gratia rex Poloniae, magnus dux Lithuaniae, Russiae, Prussiae, Masoviae, Samogitiae, Livoniae, Smolensciae, Kijoviae, Volhyniae, Podlachiae, Severiae, Czernichoviaeque, etc.[47]
Official title(in Polish):Jan III, z łaski Bożej, król Polski, wielki książę litewski, ruski, pruski, mazowiecki, żmudzki, kijowski, wołyński, podlaski i czernichowski, etc.
Vincenzo da Filicaia[48] (1642–1707) wrote a collection ofodes orcanzoni about the raising of the siege of Vienna by King John III Sobieski titled "Canzoni in occasione dell'assedio, e liberazione di Vienna," published by Piero Matini inFlorence in 1684.[49]
the first known book review journalNouvelles de la république des lettres (News from the Republic of Letters), edited and largely written by theProtestantphilosopherPierre Bayle, included a number of works about King Sobieski's victory in its 1st volume:[50] an address to the King (pp. 179–180),Motet Dramatique ou Oratoire (pp. 181–182),Paralelle de Jules Cesar et du Roi de Pologne ("Venit, vidit, vicit..." (pp. 183–185)[51]
William Wordsworth wrote on 4 February 1816, and published the same year among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"[52] (or "Poems dedicated to Independence and Liberty"[53]) his "Siege of Vienna Raised by John Sobieski", which was his take on da Falicaia's ode to Sobieski's victory, about which Wordsworth wrote, "This, and his other poems on the same occasion [of Sobieski's raising the siege of Vienna], are superior perhaps to any lyrical pieces that contemporary events have ever given birth to, those of theHebrew Scriptures only excepted. - W. W. (1816 and 1820.)"
Jan Gawiński wrote the poemClipaeus christianitatis (The shield of Christianity), in praise of Sobieski's defeating the Ottoman Empire.[54]
When he turned to go back to the camp, he discovered that there was another man up on this hill, a stone's throw away: some kind of monk or holy man, perhaps, as he was dressed in a rough sackcloth robe, with no finery. But then the bloke whipped out a sword. It was not one of your needle-thin rapiers, such as fops pushed at each other in the streets of London and Paris, but some kind of relic of the Crusades, a two-handed production with a single crossbar instead of a proper guard—the sort of thing Richard the Lionhearted might've used to slay camels in the streets of Jerusalem. This man went down on one knee in the dirt, and he did it with verve and enthusiasm. You see your rich man kneeling in church and it takes him two or three minutes, you can hear his knees popping and sinews creaking, he totters this way and that, creating small alarums amongst the servants who are gripping his elbows. But this brute knelt easily, evenlustily if such a thing were possible, and facing toward the city of Vienna, he planted his sword in the ground so that it became a steel cross. The morning light was shining directly into his grizzled face and glinting from the steel of the blade and glowing in some indifferent colored jewels set into the weapon's hilt and crossbar. The man bowed his head and took to mumbling in Latin. The hand that wasn't holding the sword was thumbing through a rosary—Jack's cue to exit stage right. But as he was leaving he recognized the man with the broadsword as King John Sobieski.
— Neal Stephenson,King of the Vagabonds, chapter "The Continent"
^abcWiktor Waintraub (1976).Memoirs of the Polish Baroque: the writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. University of California Press. p. 308.ISBN0-520-02752-3.
^Ignacy Zagórski, Edward Rastawiecki (baron) (1845).Monety dawnej polski jakoteż prowincyj i miast do niéj niegdy należacych: z trzech ostatnich wieków zebrane (in Polish). S.H. Merzbach. p. 75.
^Jerzy Starnawski, Łacińska scenka dramatyczna ku czci Jana III Sobieskiego na łamach 'Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres' /1684/, Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Bydgoszczy. Studia filologiczne 1983 z. 18.
^The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. VI (of 8). William Knight (ed.). Macmillan and Co. 1896. p. 110.
^John Frederick Wyatt, "Wordsworth and the Geologists: A Correlation of Influences". 1991. pp. 292–293
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Coyer,Histoire de Jean Sobieski (Amsterdam, 1761 and 1783)
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Dupont,Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Sobieski (Warsaw, 1885)
Rieder,Johann III., König von Polen (Vienna, 1883)
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AA.VV., L'Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società, a cura di Gaetano Platania, Viterbo, Sette Città editore, 2005 (CESPoM n. 10, Centro Studi sull'Età dei Sobieski e della Polonia Moderna)
G. Platania, Polonia e Curia romana. Corrispondenza del lucchese Tommaso Talenti segretario intimo del Re di Polonia con Carlo Barberini protettore del regno (1681–1693). vol. 1, pp. 7–613, Viterbo, Sette Città Editore, 2004,ISBN8886091613
Miltiades Varvounis,Jan Sobieski: The King Who Saved Europe (2012)
G. Platania, L’inedita corrispondenza di Jan III Sobieski e Carlo Barberini, cardinale Protettore del Regno, in Studia Wilanowskie, vol. XXII, pp. 99–119, Wilanów-Muzeum Palacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie.ISSN0137-7329.
G. Platania, Polonia e Curia romana. Corrispondenza di Giovanni III Sobieski, re di Polonia, con Carlo Barberini, protettore del regno (1681–1696). Collana Barberiniana vol. 2, pp. 11–385, Viterbo, Sette Città editore,ISBN978-88-7853-252-6
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Prochazka Jiří: "1683. Vienna obsessa. Via Silesiaca". (Brno, Wien 2012),ISBN978-80-903476-3-2
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