Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)

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244 part two—chapter one

than in Vilnius. Aer all, many royal subjects were Ruthenians and

their number sharply increased in 1569 when the southern half of the

Grand Duchy, including Volhynia and Kiev, was annexed to the Polish

Crown. In its foreign correspondence with European rulers, includ-

ing the Ottoman sultans, the Crown Chancery sticked to Latin well

into the 18th century, but this rule did not apply to its relations with

Moscow and Baghchasaray.

In the former, Ruthenian predominated

while in the latter Ruthenian was gradually replaced with Polish. Any-

way, it was certainly easier to nd in Baghchasaray a translator from

Ruthenian or Polish than from Latin.

It seems that in the times of Sigismund III solemn royal instru-

ments addressed to the khans were already composed in Polish as their

texts are extant today only in Polish copies. Nevertheless, Ruthenian

was still used along with Polish. Not accidentally, two royal envoys to

the Crimea appointed during Sigismund’s reign, Ławryn Piaseczyński

and Florian Oleszko, originated from the Volhynian nobility and both

served in the Crown chancery as notaries (Ruth. pysars) responsible for

keeping a separate series of books recorded in Ruthenian, hence their

uency in Cyrillic script was unquestionable. In 1601, Piaseczyński

carried along a number of letters in Ruthenian addressed to the khan,

qalga, and other Tatar ocials.

At times, the Polish chancery was able to provide a royal instru-

ment with an Arabic-script Turkish translation, as is evidenced by

Piaseczyński’s diary from 1602.

Yet, the quality of such translations

Admittedly, the letters of Augustus II sent to Baghchasaray were composed in

Latin; cf. n. 80 below.

Listy króla Jego Mci zawarte, po rusku pisane . . .; see Pułaski, “Trzy poselstwa

Piaseczyńskiego,” p. 247. On the careers of Piaseczyński and Oleszko as notaries

responsible for keeping Ruthenian books of the Crown Register, respectively in the

years 1569–1591 and 1583–1619, see Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, “e Ruthenian

(Volhynian) Metrica: Polish Crown Chancery Records for Ukrainian Lands, 1569–

1673,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 14 (1990): 7–83, esp. pp. 23–26 and 62–63; Petro

Kulakovs’kyj, Kanceljarija Rus’koji (Volyns’koji) metryky 1569–1673 rr. Studija z isto-

riji ukrajins’koho regionalizmu v Reči Pospolytij (Ostroh-L’viv, 2002), pp. 140–152.

Piaseczyński (Ruth. Lavryn Hnivošovyč Pisočyns’kyj), attracted by the Reformation in

his youth, ended up as a Catholic, while Oleszko (Ruth. Florian Semenovyč Oleško),

born in an Orthodox family, converted to Catholicism somewhere between 1588 and

1599.

Cf. n. 347 in Part I. Two original letters, issued in Ottoman Turkish by the

seventeenth-century Polish chancery, are preserved in the Czartoryski Library in

Cracow. ey were composed in 1653 and entrusted to Kasper Szymański, a royal

envoy dispatched to the Kalmyks. Issued on behalf of King John Casimir and Crown

Chancelor Stefan Koryciński, they are addressed “to His Excellency, the sultan, our

the language and preservation of documents 245

depended on the quality of the translators serving at a given time in

the Crown Chancery, which ranged from excellent

to very poor.

In the 17th century, Polish came to be used in the Crimean chan-

cery as well and oen served in mutual negotiations between the Pol-

ish and Tatar commissionaries. Yet, by the 18th century it had lost

much of its attractiveness for the East European elites. At the same

time, a number of foreigners, typically of Levantine origin, entered

the Polish service as diplomats and translators.

Although sooner

or later they learned Polish, they oen preferred to translate Arabic-

script documents coming from Muslim capitals into Latin or French,

so these languages gained new prominency in the relations between

Baghchasaray and Warsaw.

Original documents published in the present collection

All documents published in the present volume, which are preserved

in the original, are held today in the Main Archives of Early Acts

(Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych) in Warsaw, in its section named

the Warsaw Crown Archives (Archiwum Koronne Warszawskie). e

Polish Crown Archives were founded in the 14th century and initially

held in Cracow. Aer the court moved to Warsaw at the turn of the

16th century, the Crown Archives were organized in two branches—

the Cracow and the Warsaw ones—but in 1765 both branches were

prosperous and mighty friend, the ruler of the land of Kalmyks” (Qalmuq vilayetiniŋ

hakimi olan sa‘adetlü ve şevketlü dostumuza sultan hazretleri). e letters, drawn in

the divani script, are extant in the sealed originals; see Bibl. Czart., ms. 609, nos.

37–38, pp. 293–308 (Baranowski, who wrote on Szymański’s mission, knew only their

contemporary Polish translations preserved in AGAD, Libri Legationum, no. 33, fol.

84b–85a; cf. idem, Znajomość Wschodu w dawnej Polsce, pp. 217–218). ey never

reached the addressee because Szymański’s mission was probably cancelled; see His-

toria dyplomacji polskiej, vol. 2, pp. 275 and 285. It remains unknown who composed

these letters, written in decent Ottoman Turkish; perhaps it was Wojciech Bieczyński,

the Crown translator of Oriental languages of the time.

Samuel Otwinowski and Franciszek Meniński (born François à Mesgnien),

appointed in the Crown Chancery in the 17th century, were among the best Euro-

pean translators of the time. Otwinowski’s translations of Ottoman and Crimean

documents, preserved in various manuscript collections, can be still admired for their

precision. Meniński spent over one decade in Poland where he was ennobled (hence

he adopted the Polish surname), but he made his greatest career as a linguist aer he

entered the Habsburg service in Vienna.

At least two of them deserve to be mentioned, namely Franciszek Giuliani and

Antoni Crutta (the latter was born in Albania).

246 part two—chapter one

united in Warsaw. Aer the partitions of Poland-Lithuania, in 1795

the Polish Crown Archives were taken to St. Petersburg, and in 1828

they were transferred to Moscow and incorporated into the Moscow

Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs (Moskovskij Glavnyj

Arxiv Ministerstva [Kollegii until 1834] Inostrannyx Del). In result of

Poland’s resurrection aer WW1 and the victorious Polish-Soviet war,

sealed by the Treaty of Riga (1921), in 1923 the Polish Crown Archives

returned to Warsaw where they remain today, having luckily survived

the Nazi occupation during WW2.

e oldest two instruments of peace, issued by the Crimean khans

and preserved in the original in the Crown Archives, are those from

the years 1514 (in Italian) and 1520 (in Khwarezmian Turkic).

One

should certainly deplore that no earlier originals are preserved, but

it is worth stressing that the oldest original Crimean instrument of

peace, extant today in Moscow, is over a century later and origins

from 1630.

Out of the een original Crimean documents published in the

present volume,

eleven have already appeared in Arabic script in the

monumental edition Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago xanstva, pub-

lished in 1864 by Vladimir Vel’jaminov-Zernov and Xusain Faizx-

anov.

e aforementioned edition contains 378 Crimean documents

On the revindication of the Polish Crown Archives, stipulated by the Treaty of

Riga, see Józef Siemieński, “Rewindykacja Archiwów Koronnych,” Archeion 1 (1927):

33–60.

On the Tatar documents held in the Polish archives, including the yarlıq of

Tokhtamısh from 1393, cf. Zygmunt Abrahamowicz, “Dokumenty tatarskie i tureckie

w zbiorach polskich,” pp. 141–148. e oldest Crimean document preserved in the

original (in Ruthenian) is the letter of Mengli Giray from 1512; cf. n. 34 above and

n. 123 in Part I.

A slightly earlier document from 1624 is preserved in a contemporary copy in

Arabic script; cf. n. 394 in Part I. On the oldest original instruments of peace addressed

to the Russian tsars and preserved in Moscow, cf. n. 192 below. Admittedly, one can

nd older Crimean documents preserved in Russian collections, but they are not

instruments of peace.

Not counting the text of the oath of the Tatar plenipotentiaries from 1667,

authenticated by the Polish hetman, Jan Sobieski, with his handwritten signature.

Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago xanstva izvlečennyja, po rasporjaženiju Impera-

torskoj Akademii Nauk, iz Moskovskago Glavnago Arxiva Ministerstva Inostrannyx

Del. Edited by V. Vel’jaminov-Zernov and X. Faizxanov [Fejzxanov] (St. Petersburg,

1864). On the key role of Faizxanov, overshadowed in scholarly literature by his more

prominent Russian colleague, in the collecting and copying of Tatar documents, see

Sagit Faizov, “Značenie nasledija Xusaina Faizxanova v oblasti krymsko-tatarskoj

arxeograi dlja izučenija istorii Krymskogo jurta i russko-krymskix otnošenij,”

in: Xusain Faizxanov. Žizn’ i nasledie. Istoriko-dokumental’nyj sbornik. Edited by

the language and preservation of documents 247

sent to the Russian and Polish courts, which in the 19th century were

held together in Moscow, but today are again separated among Mos-

cow and Warsaw.

e editors le out the instrument of the Treaty

of Zborów (1649)—apparently by neglect, as well as all the Crimean

instruments that were not written in Arabic script (even though they

were stamped with Arabic-script seals), including the instrument in

Italian from 1514 and the instruments in Polish from 1667 and 1672,

which are published in the present volume.

Unfortunately, no Tatar instruments, addressed to the grand dukes

of Lithuania: Vytautas, Švitrigaila, and Sigismund, who ruled autono-

mously under the suzerainty of the Polish kings in the years 1392–1440

and are known to have corresponded with the khans, are extant either

in the original or in copies. A number of later documents addressed to

kings Casimir and Sigismund specically as Lithuanian and not Polish

rulers, are preserved in copies. It is signicant that although in 1514

and 1520 the khans issued separate instruments for Lithuania and for

Poland, today only those issued for Poland are extant in the original,

while those issued for Lithuania are preserved merely in copies. One

can assume that the instruments regarding Lithuania had been stored

in the Grand Ducal Archives, kept initially in Trakai, and since the

early 16th century in Vilnius.

Most of them probably perished in the

D. Muxetdinov (Nižnij Novgorod, 2008): 145–149. e collection by Vel’jaminov-

Zernov and Faizxanov has recently been reprinted and provided with a new intro-

duction by A. Melek Özyetgin and İlyas Kamalov; see Kırım yurtına ve ol taraarga

dair bolgan yarlıglar ve hatlar. Kırım Hanlığı tarihine dair kaynaklar. [Edited by]

V. V. Velyaminov-Zernov (St. Petersburg, 1864). Giriş-Tıpkıbasım. Prepared for pub-

lication by A. M. Özyetgin and İ. Kamalov (Ankara, 2009). Alas, the new introduction

is unreliable as far as the historical context is concerned. For instance, the authors

mistook Sigismund I of Poland for Vasilij III of Muscovy and Frederick Augustus of

Saxony (i.e., Augustus III of Poland) for Frederick II of Prussia thus wrongly attribut-

ing the addressees of both the oldest and the youngest documents published in the

collection; cf. ibidem, p. XI.

Out of the 378 Crimean documents published in Materialy, 67 belong to the Pol-

ish Crown Archives; cf. Abrahamowicz, “Dokumenty tatarskie i tureckie w zbiorach

polskich,” p. 147.

Cf. Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, “e Archival Legacy of the Grand Duchy of

Lithuania: e Fate of Early Historical Archives in Vilnius,” e Slavonic and East

European Review 57 (1979): 552–571, esp. pp. 553–554; cf. eadem, with the collab-

oration of Irena Sułkowska-Kurasiowa, e “Lithuanian Metrica” in Moscow and

Warsaw: Reconstructing the Archives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Including an

annotated edition of the 1887 Inventory compiled by Stanisław Ptaszycki (Cambridge,

Mass., 1984), p. 11.

248 part two—chapter one

great re of the Vilnius Lower Castle during the Russian invasion of

1655, if they had not been consumed by time already earlier.

A part of the Grand Ducal Archives survived the catastrophe (see

below on the Lithuanian Register). Besides, some documents have

resurfaced in private archives, especially the Radziwiłł family archives,

because the Lithuanian chancellors, among whom one nds numer-

ous Radziwiłłs, notoriously kept state papers in their private archives.

Nevertheless, no original Crimean yarlıq, addressed to a Lithuanian

ruler, is known to have been preserved in either state or private

archives.

e sorrowful fate of the Lithuanian archives aects the present

study only in part, because aer 1569 the conduct of Crimean aairs

was overtaken by the Polish chancery and the incoming instruments

of the khans were no longer stored in Vilnius, but rather in Cracow

or Warsaw. A more serious handicap, aecting the equilibrium of the

present study, is the total absence of original Polish-Lithuanian instru-

ments, sent to Qırq Yer or Baghchasaray, which were probably once

kept in the khans’ archives. e only extant instrument, which can be

regarded as the original, is the oath of the Polish plenipotentiaries,

taken in 1667 at Pidhajci, authenticated by Hetman Jan Sobieski with

his handwritten signature, and sent to Warsaw in order to be stored

in the Crown Archives. is document is preserved because it was

not sent to the Crimea and is preserved today in the Polish and not

Crimean archives. e latter are known to have perished in the great

re of the khan’s palace in Baghchasaray during the Russian invasion

of 1736.

e post of the Lithuanian chancellor was held by the Radziwiłł family members

in the years 1492–1521, 1550–1579, 1623–1656, and 1690–1719; in addition, the post

of the vice-chancellor (podkanclerzy) was held by this family members in the years

1579–1585, 1619–1623, and 1668–1690; in sum, in the years 1492–1521, 1550–1585,

1619–1656, and 1668–1719 either the chancellor or vice-chancellor was a Radziwiłł;

see Urzędnicy centralni i dostojnicy Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego XIV–XVIII wieku.

Spisy. Edited by H. Lulewicz and A. Rachuba (Kórnik, 1994), pp. 51–53 and 146–149;

on the Lithuanian state papers preserved in the Radziwiłł family archives, see Kennedy

Grimsted, “e Archival Legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania,” p. 567, and more

recently Waldemar Mikulski, “Dokumenty z archiwum Wielkiego Księstwa Litews-

kiego w Archiwum Warszawskim Radziwiłłów,” in: Miscellanea Historico-Archivistica,

vol. VII (Warsaw, 1997): 71–83, esp. p. 73. Aer WW1, these archives were transferred

from the Radziwiłł residence in Nesviž (Pol. Nieśwież) to Warsaw, and aer WW2

they were nationalized and incorporated into the Main Archives of Early Acts.

the language and preservation of documents 249

Like in the case of the Lithuanian catastrophe of 1655, the Crimean

archives were not destroyed entirely in 1736. For instance, aer the fall

of the Crimean Khanate, the last treasurer (hazinedar), Mehmed Agha,

submitted to the Russian authorities over 100 registers, the majority

of which contained the records of cases heard at the central Crimean

court.

e oldest registers originated from the rst half of the 17th

century and apparently had not been aected by Münnich’s invasion

of 1736. Brought from Simferopol to St. Petersburg in 1905, today

these registers constitute the section (fond) named Kazy-askerskie

knigi Krymskogo xanstva in the Russian National Library.

Moreover,

in the Russian State Archives of Early Acts in Moscow one nds four

original letters addressed to Khan Kaplan Giray, sent in 1714 by the

Polish king, Augustus II, his rival Stanisław Leszczyński, and the Pol-

ish grand hetman, Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, all preserved in enve-

lopes with original seals. e question how these letters found their

way to Moscow and why they have been incorporated into the Rus-

sian correspondence with Istanbul and not with Baghchasaray, merits

a further study.

Historians like to mythologize single dramatic events as symbolical

moments of destruction of “national heritages”—like the dates of the

See Fedor Laškov, “Istoričeskij očerk Krymsko-tatarskago zemlevladenija,” in:

Izvestija Tavričeskoj učenoj arxivnoj kommissii, vol. 21 (Simferopol, 1894): 59–89,

esp. p. 65.

Cf. St. Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, fond 917. On their

transfer from Simferopol, see Otčet Imperatorskoj Publičnoj Biblioteki za 1905 god

(St. Petersburg, 1912), pp. 38–39. Apart from cases heard by the court, also the con-

tents of numerous yarlıqs, issued by the khans and qalgas, have been recorded in these

registers; yet, all these yarlıqs regard domestic matters while no documents concern-

ing foreign aairs have been found there (apart from a number of cases concerning

Ottoman subjects who have arrived in the Khanate); for the summary contents of the

yarlıqs recorded in these registers until 1774, see Natalia Królikowska, “Law and Divi-

sion of Power in the Crimean Khanate. A Study on the Reign of Murad Giray (1678–

1683).” Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Warsaw, 2010, pp. 234–251 (Appendix I).

See RGADA, f. 89 “Snošenija Rossii s Turciej,” op. 4, no. 4. I wish to thank

Natalia Królikowska for drawing my attention to this collection. e two letters of

Augustus II (in Latin) are dated on 20 August and 7 September 1714 in Rydzyna, and

the letter of Hetman Sieniawski (in Polish) on 25 September in Sataniv (Pol. Satanów).

ey all refer to the returning Crimean embassy of Sefer-shah Bey, who successfully

negotiated the reconciliation between the king and the khan. e letter of Stanisław

Leszczyński (in Polish) is dated July 1714 in Zweibrücken (Deux-Ponts) and discloses

the author’s frustration with the rapprochement between his archenemy and Kaplan

Giray. Stanisław invoked his old friendship with the khan and advised him not to trust

Augustus II as long as the latter sided with Muscovy; on the political background of

this correspondence, see n. 555 in Part I.

250 part two—chapter one

Russian invasions of Vilnius (1655) and Baghchasaray (1736). In Rus-

sian historiography, an analogous place is given to the invasions of

Moscow, respectively by the Tatars (1571), the Poles (1610–1612), and

the Frenchmen (1812). e truth is sometimes less clear cut and more

complicated. To take one example: the Tatar and Polish invasions of

Moscow admittedly brought huge losses to the Russian archives, as is

evidenced by the inventories, executed immediately aer these disas-

ters on the order of the Russian authorities. Yet, comparable losses

were caused by natural forces, especially the great re of 1626, and still,

aer all these events, many ancient Crimean documents were extant in

Moscow in the 17th century.

If they are no longer extant today, this is

probably due to less spectacular reasons than enemy invasions or res,

namely moisture, worms, human neglect, and—even in our days—the

lack of money for their proper maintenance and restoration.

No matter how diligently packed, these documents had been exposed

to various dangers even before they reached the relative safety oered

by archive vaults. Some were taken to and fro between the capitals

concerned in order to be “amended” or to serve as models for future

instruments. An illuminating scribal note can be found in the Polish

Crown Register, where Mengli Giray’s letter addressed to the king of

Bohemia was copied in 1472. While the text of the letter is recorded in

Latin, the scribal margin note is in Polish and explains the lamentable

state of the khan’s document. While reading the phrase “and the rest

has been torn by pigs” (a ostatek swynye wyryly), we can easily imagine

a shabby inn cum animal barn in which the Crimean envoys must have

spent the ominous night when the mentioned accident occurred.

To be sure, a horde of drunken soldiers can bring much harm, and

victorious commanders, overwhelmed by glory and other more urgent

matters, are oen deaf to the fate of the captured papers and books. But

it is equally likely that the conquerors would preserve them in order

to eciently administer the captured lands, draw taxes from the con-

quered population, and—last but not least—legitimize their conquest.

Even in those rare cases when the conquerors really want to annihilate

the cultural heritage of the defeated, like the Nazis in Warsaw aer

the crushed uprising of 1944, they oen fail to do their job “properly”

On the inventories of the Muscovian archives ordered and executed in the years

1570s (undated), 1614, and 1626, see notes 25–26 above.

AGAD, Metryka Koronna, Libri Inscriptionum, no. 12, fol. 79b; published in

Pułaski, Stosunki Polski z Tatarszczyzną, p. 199; on this embassy, cf. n. 53 in Part I.

the language and preservation of documents 251

because they are prevented from doing so by the defeated people’s

caretakers (like the aforementioned Crimean treasurer Mehmed Agha)

or an inadequate motivation of their own employees.

A decade ago, a belief still prevailed in international scholarly com-

munity that the Soviet authorities, along with expelling the Tatars

from the Crimea in 1944, deliberately and viciously destroyed their

cultural heritage, held in the Soviet archives and libraries.

Today we

know that at least a part of this heritage is preserved, although the

losses suered by the Tatar culture in the 1930s and 1940s are hard

to be overestimated. It remains to hope that one day more documents

from the Crimean archives will resurface in one of the tremendously

rich Russian collections.

Ocial translations held in the Crown Archives

When written in Arabic script, Crimean letters addressed to Christian

courts were sometimes provided with translations made in the khan’s

chancery. More oen, the Arabic-script letters were translated at the

recipient’s court by ocial translators, hired in all the chanceries that

maintained regular contacts with Muslim states. Such translations, kept

in the recipient’s archives along with the received originals, assumed

an ocial character and were regarded—certainly by the recipient,

though not necessarily by the sender—as equal to the Arabic-script

originals.

In the Polish Crown Archives, ocial translations are preserved on

separate sheets of paper or on the reverse side of original documents

in Turkish. eir legal value was analogous to the validity of ocial

copies, entered into the Crown Register (see below). In fact, the latter

were typically based on the ocial translations and their texts are oen

identical. Today, the extant translations are especially valuable if the

original letters have not been preserved. For instance, four Crimean

instruments: of Ghazi II Giray from 1599, the latter’s envoy, Djan

Temir Agha, from the same year, Mehmed III Giray from 1624, and

Cf. Halil Inalcık, “Znaxidka kadijs’kyx sidžiliv (sudovyx knyh) Krymsk’koho

xanatu,” in: Mappa Mundi. Zbirnyk naukovyx prac’ na pošanu Jaroslava Daškevyča z

nahody joho 70-riččja (L’viv-Kiev-New York, 1996): 308–329, esp. pp. 308–310. e

author, who announced the discovery of several dozens of microlmed Crimean court

registers, preserved in a local Crimean archive, did not know the fate of their originals

which have been preserved in St. Petersburg, see n. 79 above.

252 part two—chapter one

Inayet Giray from 1635, are no longer extant in the original, but their

ocial translations into Polish are preserved in the Crown Archives.

e translations of the documents from 1624 and 1635 were made by

the Crown translator, Samuel Otwinowski, from the now lost Turk-

ish originals. e translation of the instrument of 1624 even contains

Otwinowski’s notes and explanations given in parantheses, which give

us an intimate insight into his understanding of Ottoman-Turkish.

As far as the khan’s instrument of 1599 is concerned, its Turkish orig-

inal had been already lost by Otwinowski’s times. Charged in 1641

with assembling the ancient Crimean documents, the Crown transla-

tor recorded that he could not nd it in the Crown Archives so he

merely copied an earlier Polish translation. e original of Djan Temir

Agha’s instrument from 1599 had also disappeared by 1785, and prob-

ably much earlier. It is preserved in the translation done by a royal

chancery translator, Machin Chir.

Ocial copies entered in the Crown and Lithuanian Registers

In spite of the gradual unication between the Polish Crown and the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania that lasted with short interruptions since

1386 till 1795, the two states retained separate chanceries until the

demise of the Commonwealth. Neither Cracow nor Vilnius formally

resigned from maintaining multidirectional diplomatic relations,

although at times they admitted limited experience (or interest) in

certain areas and matters and le dealing with them to the partner.

Since Poland had been a member of Latin Christian Europe since 966,

its chancery had a long tradition of diplomatic contacts with the Holy

Roman Empire, the Papacy, as well as other western and southern

European courts. Cracow also maintained intensive diplomatic rela-

tions with Istanbul, because the Polish and Ottoman political interests

crossed in Hungary and Moldavia. On the other hand, Vilnius had

more experience in the correspondence with Moscow and the Tatar

khanates, usually conducted in Cyrillic script. Some directions were of

equal importance to both Cracow and Vilnius, like the relations with

See Document 48, notes 3 and 5–6.

On the two instruments from 1599 and their translations, see Document 37,

n. 1, and Document 38, n. l.

Cf. n. 143 in Part I.

the language and preservation of documents 253

the Teutonic Order or Moldavia. In such cases, the contents of a for-

eign embassy could be divided in respect to their relevance for either

Cracow or Vilnius and entered accordingly into the Polish or Lithu-

anian chancery books.

Since the beginning of the 16th century, the

rising nancial share of the Polish Crown in defending the Lithuanian

eastern borders and in preparing gis for the khans resulted in the

rising interest of Cracow in the Muscovian and Crimean aairs. Hav-

ing incorporated the Lithuanian southern provinces in 1569, Poland

simultaneously obtained a common border with Muscovy and terri-

torially cut o Lithuania from the Crimean Khanate. In result, aer

1569 the Crimean matters were almost entirely taken over by Cracow

while the Muscovian aairs were conducted by Vilnius and Cracow

in liaison.

To summarize, by 1569 the correspondence with the Crimea was

maintained by both Vilnius and Cracow, although the share of Vil-

nius was far larger, especially until 1514. Aer 1569, the role of Vil-

nius became almost negligible and reected the marginalization of the

Grand Duchy in the Commonwealth’s southern politics. Ocial cop-

ies of documents, regarding the diplomatic exchange with the Crimea,

can be thus found in both the Polish and Lithuanian state papers,

although the share of the latter sharply decreases aer 1569.

In the Polish Crown, the contents of ocial correspondence, both

received from and sent to foreign courts, were usually

recorded in the

Crown Register (Lat. Metrica Regni Poloniae, Pol. Metryka Koronna).

Initially, matters concerning either domestic or foreign aairs were

recorded indiscriminately in the Inscription Books (Lat. Libri Inscrip-

tionum). Yet, at least since 1501 foreign correspondence was entered

into the Legation Books (Lat. Libri Legationum), which originated from

the Inscription Books but developed into a separate category. Never-

theless, it still happened that documents related to foreign aairs were

For such division of the papers originating from a single Moldavian embassy, cf.

Banionis, “K voprosu o genezise posol’skix knig (1480–1486),” pp. 70–71.

In both the Polish and Lithuanian cases, only a part of the documents, known

to have been sent or received by the respective chanceries, is recorded in the extant

registers. For instance, from among 2106 documents, known to have been issued in

the years 1492–1506, only 934 (i.e., 44%) are recorded in the extant books of the

Lithuanian Register. e dierence can be explained by two factors: a) not all docu-

ments were registered; b) not all the volumes of the Register have been preserved; cf.

Pietkiewicz, Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie pod rządami Aleksandra Jagiellończyka, p. 37.