Occasional Literature on the Victory at Smolensk Won in 1634 by Władysław IV Vasa, Grandson of the Jagiellonian Dynasty – a Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Władysław IV Vasa was the grandson of Catherine Jagiellon, wife of John III of Sweden. His Jagiellonian origin is mentioned by the authors of occasional works about the war for Smolensk. The present article sets out to review the occasional literature accompanying Władysław’s expedition and the Smolensk victory in 1634. It takes into account the structure and subject matter of the works, as well as the persuasiveness serving the pro-royal propaganda. Occasional works representing various literary genres, characteristic of the subsequent phases of the information and propaganda campaign, are the subject of my research. They accompanied the successive stages of military operations: going to war (sermons, exhortations), the course of the fighting (news and diaries), works accompanying the triumphant return from the battlefield (triumphs, victory odes, speeches, songs, congratulatory works in prose and verse, triumphal sermons). They are mainly in Polish and Latin, but there are also some in German, Spanish and Italian.