Napis (Aug 2022)
The image of Poland and Poles in the Dmitriads, from the British perspective
Abstract
This article presents the seventeenth-century publications of English authors devoted to the Dmitriads and the participation of Poles – as inspirers, advisers to both ‘false tsars’ (Dmitri I and Dmitri II), beneficiaries and finally the victims of the Moscow events in the years 1604-1612. The author makes an initial division of English texts into memories of the participants of the events (English soldiers then fought on both sides of the conflict) and occasional literary works, presenting Moscow events in a specific way, in order to impress readers or viewers, achieve a political goal (e.g. by comparing Boris Godunov with Oliver Cromwell) or promote a specific ideological message with an anti-Catholic, anti-papal and anti-Jesuit meaning. The texts quoted here (mainly from the anthology by Sonia Howe The False Dmitri: a Russian Romance and Tragedy, published in 1916, supplemented by other literary sources) reveal a generally unfavourable and critical image of Poles of that time, softened by notes of sympathy and idyllic versions of description of love of Dmitri and the Polish aristocrat, Marina Mniszchówna.
