The Horizons of Truth in Polish Occasional Brochures of 1621: On the 400th Anniversary of the Battle of Khotyn

Radosław SZTYBER

Abstract

The article comprises a scrutiny of four Polish pamphlets issued in 1621 in order to provide information on the battle between the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the invading Ottoman Imperial army taking place near Khotyn. The battle would end with a peace treaty. The primary goal of the paper is to outline the image of the conflict, as it was described in the studied incunables, which were printed either soon after the battle was over or when it was still in progress. The analysis is focused primarily on the declarations made by the authors of the studied texts, on the stylistic devices they employed, and on the issue of truthfulness of the reports on the course of the battle, as documented in the pamphlets in question. Their authors reverted to multiple forms of persuasion in order to inculcate the belief in their readers that the Polish Crown was destined to win the battle and that the victory would be ultimately ensured by Divine intervention. Although the authors of the pamphlets claimed that their reports were reliable, the information they conveyed was to a large extent untrue, whether due to the propagandist nature of the brochures or as a result of the authors’ ignorance as to the actual course of the battle. However, one of the pamphlets under scrutiny comprises a realistic overview of the events, and its author rationally describes the potential threat the Ottoman Empire still posed to Poland at the time.