Ян Хризостом Пасек: Польский шляхтич және естеліктері

Polish nobleman and writer

Jan Chryzostom Pasek of Gosławice (c.1636–1701) was a Polish nobleman and writer during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is best remembered for his memoirs (Pamiętniki), which are a valuable historical source about Baroque sarmatian culture and events in the Commonwealth.

Pasek was born in Węgrzynowice (now in Tomaszów Mazowiecki County) in 1636, to Marian Władysław Pasek and Jadwiga Pasek (née Piekarska) a petty noble family. Jan was their only child and a very much beloved son. Pasek attended a Jesuit school at Rawa. He later enlisted in the army at age 19 and for 11 years he was a soldier in the Polish military, where he initially fought in the campaigns under Hetman Stefan Czarniecki, for whom he had great respect, against the Swedish Empire during the Swedish invasion of Poland (potop szwedzki) and the 1657 Hungarian invasion of Southern Poland led by George Rákóczi who had allied with the Swedish forces. In 1658 his division under Czarniecki was sent to aid the defence of Denmark where he took part in the capture of Als and the storming of Koldinghus castle. During his time in Denmark he nearly married a lady known as Eleanor of Croes Dyvarne, but instead decided to return to Poland with the rest of the army in 1659, a decision that was to personally trouble him for the rest of his life. Czarniecki's army returned to Poland and began to engage Moscovite units who had been invading from the East during 1660. Pasek took part in the Battle of Polonka in June and the Battle of Basya in October 1660. He refused to take part in the Confederacy that formed in over a lack of army pay 1661 and detested that the army would take such action just as the tide of the war against Muscovy was turning. Instead he left camp to return to his home near Łódź, before setting off to rejoin the army of Hetman Czarniecki near Czereja. Along the way he was involved in a mix up between loyalist and confederate forces, arrested as a suspected confederate envoy and brought to the Royal Court at Grodno. After successfully arguing his innocence and loyalty to the King, the case against him was overturned by King John II Casimir and he was given letters to take to Czarniecki. After this he was tasked with escorting Muscovite envoys to the 1662 Diet at Warsaw. Later that year he went on a pilgrimage to Częstochowa where he begged for absolution for his unfulfilled engagement to Eleanor while in Denmark. Pasek was against the Lubomirski Confederacy and joined the army on the loyalist side. He despaired at the further damage done by the civil war to Poland and the loss of veteran army units during the war. He attended the Diet in 1666 during which he lamented the state of politics of the time. In 1667 Pasek married a 46 year old widow Anna (née Remiszowska, primo voto Łącka) who, much to his dismay, failed to bear him any children. This he blamed on the presence of his five stepdaughters, whose later marriage or nunnery dowry's subsequently caused him financial hardship. He and his wife attended the funeral of Queen Ludwika in Kraków in 1667, and attended the Diet of 1668 where King John II Casimir announced that he would abdicate. In 1668 he went to Warsaw for the Diet that would elect the next King of Poland and later attended the coronation of King Michał I. From 1670 onwards he dealt with the shipments of grain from his leaseholds at Olszówka, Miławczyce, Skrzypiów and Smogorzów in Lesser Poland down the River Vistula to Gdańsk. In 1672 he was involved in raiding parties sent to harass the invading Turks and Tatars, before taking part in the Diet of 1672 in Lublin. He participated in the 1674 election of King Jan Sobieski and attended the joint burial of the late Kings Kazimierz and Michał and the coronation of Sobieski in Kraków in 1676. His later years were spent fending off lawsuits that arose from his various excesses and conflicts with neighbours which eventually resulted in him being exiled, however, the sentence was never enforced. Pasek died on 1 August 1701 in the village of Niedzieliska, Lesser Poland Voivodeship the year after the death of his wife and he was buried in Budziszewice near to his birthplace.

His diary has sometimes been called the “Epos of Sarmatian Poland”, and inspired a number of 19th and 20th century Polish writers, such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Teodor Jeske Choiński, Zygmunt Krasiński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and Witold Gombrowicz. Adam Mickiewicz devoted two of his lectures on Slavic literature to him; Juliusz Słowacki used his figure in "Mazepie", where the author of 'Memoirs' on the porch, 'With a serious parrot': "And he stood with a large piece of paper well! he's a lovely speaker, he prepared a macaroon poem for the king." Henryk Sienkiewicz made extensive use of the Pasek's vocabulary and most likely took the title of the first volume of his "Trilogy" (With Fire and Sword) from a line in Pasek's memoirs: "[the enemy] plundered three parts of our homeland with sword and fire " ([wróg] trzy części ojczyzny naszej mieczem i ogniem splądrował ). His works inspired others including Zygmunt Krasiński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Zygmunt Kaczkowski, Teodor Jeske Choiński, and Henryk Rzewuski, who wrote a series of 'noble's' tales' published as pl ("Memoirs of Soplica"). Pasek's influence is also visible in the literature of the 20th century, e. g. in poetry Jerzy Harasymowicz, Ernest Bryll, in the novel "Trans Atlantyk" (1953) Witold Gombrowicz (a parody of a noble's tales), in the stories of the author of "Szczenięcych lat" Melchior Wańkowicz, and in the work of Ksawery Pruszyński and Wojciech Żukrowski. Numerous references to Pasek's diaries show the inspirational roots of Polish artists in the national culture of the 17th century Commonwealth.