National Programme for the Development of Humanities; module 1.1; no. 11H 12 0174 81. Project for 2013-2017.
The main aim of the project is a scholarly edition of Janusz Radziwiłł’s correspondence from 1646-1655, when he was first Field Hetman (1646-1653), a then Grand Hetman of Lithuania (1654-1655). The most important part of J. Radziwiłł’s correspondence – encompassing several hundred letters – is now in the so-called chancellery records, the largest surviving fragment of the hetman chancellery from the 16th-17th centuries. The project also provides for the publication of the remaining part of Radziwiłł’s epistolographic legacy from that period, which can be found in numerous archives and libraries both in Poland and abroad.
In addition, the team intends to prepare, on the basis of Janusz Radziwiłł’s epistolographic legacy and the existing literature on the subject, an extensive study devoted to the hetman’s political-military activity as well as the organisation and operation of the hetman chancellery in the analysed period. This will make it possible to discover the causes and circumstance of the crisis that affected the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the entire Polish Commonwealth in the first period of King John Casimir’s rule, a period marked by wars with the Cossacks, Muscovy and Sweden (1648-1655), which shook the foundations of the state. It will also provide an insight into J. Radziwiłł’s policy and shed new light on military operations conducted by the Lithuanians and the Cossacks in 1648-1655.