Special Issue: Jagiellonian Heritage in Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland

This special issue of Scando-Slavica is devoted to the Polish-LithuanianSwedish-Finnish heritage relating to the Jagiellonian dynasty, and for obvious reasons revolves around the person of Queen Catherine Jagiellon (Polish: Katarzyna Jagiellonka, Lithuanian: Kotryna Jogailaitė, Swedish: Katarina Jagellonica, Finnish: Katariina Jagellonica; 1 November 1526 – 16 September 1583) and her legacy. Articles collected in this issue are the result of the project “Jagiellonian Heritage as a platform for dialogue between Poland and Finland”, financed by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), carried out between October and December 2020 under the leadership of Ewa Cybulska-Bohuszewicz (Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw) in cooperation with University of Jyväskylä in Finland represented by Susanna Niiranen. The aims of the project were twofold: presenting and promoting the legacy of the Jagiellonians in the Nordic countries and creating a network of researchers from various academic centres in Poland, Sweden, Finland and Lithuania who undertook the task of mapping ongoing research, identifying different historical sources found in national archives and libraries and defining common features in the history and culture of these countries. Although the fates of Poland and Lithuania, which for centuries functioned as one powerful state organism, namely the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, are well known, as are the intricate and often tense Polish-Swedish relations, which ended with the so-called Swedish Deluge (i.e., the Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth in 1655–1660), we know less about the role that Finland played in its common history. Notably, Finland was the first country of residence of Catherine Jagiellon, the youngest daughter of the Polish King Sigismund the Old (1467–1548) and the Italian princess Bona Sforza (1494–1557), after she married Duke John III Vasa (Swedish: Johan III; 1537–1592), the son of the founder of the Vasa dynasty, Gustav (1496– 1560), and his second wife Margareta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud (1516– 1551). Materials presented during the project shed new light on these issues, because the focus of scholarly reflection was directed towards the sources that had hitherto been either poorly researched, studied for the