JÓZEF WERESZCZYŃSKI’S POLITICAL TREATISES ABOUT THE CHIVALRIC SCHOOLS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article examines the treatises and political projects of Józef Wereszczyński (1532–1598), the Catholic bishop of Kyiv, about chivalric schools in Ukraine. Thus, in the first treatise “Droga pewna...” (1590), he outlined a program for the revival of princely Ukraine, where the concept of colonization of the region included the creation of a defensive border against danger from the East. The bishop developed a specific radical project for the establishment of a chivalric school in Ukraine and the order of the Crusaders in Transdnieper region “in the wild fields under the heavenly roof” in the treatise “Publika...”(1594). The old chivalrous spirit should be revived in the school, half of the defense forces of Ukraine should be armed in the Cossack style, and the second – in the hussar style, and several thousand infantrymen from the local population should be added to them. In general, Józef Wereszczyński interprets Ukraine as “western breeches”, a defensive wall of Poland against invasion from the Muslim and Muscovite east, and in the treatise “Sposób osady nowego Kijowa...” (1595) the strategic importance of Kyiv as a developed fortress city is revealed. Instead, in the memorial “Wojsku zaporoskiemu...” (1596), Józef Wereszczyński laid out the project of the Cossack state, justifying the political-administrative reform by dividing the Zaporizhzhia principality into 13 regiments with the center in Pereiaslav. The author of the treatises admitted that he was ready to lead the newly created knightly state of the Cossack people.

Wereszczyński’s bold and original political projects related to the colonization of Ukraine, the reconstruction and strengthening of the defense of Kyiv and all borderlands against the threat of Islam and the creation of a «holy league» against it cannot fail to impress. Józef Wereszczyński should be considered one of the honored thinkers of his time, who was ahead of the times with his actions and projects. This was confirmed later in life. As a representative of the “gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus” formation, he was equally concerned about all citizens of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, regardless of nationality or religion, and became a model of civil solidarity, patriotism and tolerance, which makes his creativity and activity interesting and necessary today.