Nobel Laureate in Literature
- Bulak-Balakhovich Stanislav
commander of the Belarusian People's Army - Vasilkovsky Oleg
Head of the BNR diplomatic mission in the Baltic States - Genyush Larisa
"a bird without a nest" - poetess, keeper of the BPR archive - Duzh-Dushevsky Claudius
national flag design - Kondratovich Kyprian
Minister of Defense of the BNR - Lastovsky Vaclav
Prime Minister of the BNR, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR - Lutskevich Anton
Sergeant of the Rada of the Minister of BNR - Lutskevich Ivan
cultural trader of Belarus - Lyosik Yazep
Chairman of the Rada of the BPR, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR - Skirmunt Roman
elite of the Empire and Prime Minister of the BNR
Belarusian People's Republic
one of the creators of the modern literary language, the author of the anthem "Pursuit"
humanist, educator, heretic, church reformer
- Mindovg (1248-1263)
King of the Prussians and Litvins - Voyshelk (1264-1267)
son of Mindovg, who annexed Nalshany and Diavoltva - Schwarn (1267-1269)
son-in-law of Mindovg and son of the king of Rus' - Viten (1295 - 1316)
"invent a coat of arms for yourself and for the whole princedom of Lithuania: a knight of a zbroyna on a horse with a sword" - Gediminas (1316-1341)
V. prince who united Lithuania and the Principality of Polotsk - Olgerd (1345-1377)
V. prince who gathered all Belarusian lands into a single state - Jagiello (1377-1381)
V. Prince of Lithuania and King of Poland. Union of Krevo - (1381-1382)
"Oath of Keistut" and the first mention of the oral Old Belarusian language - Vytautas (1392-1430)
and the beginning of the "Golden Age" ON - Svidrigailo (1430-1432)
rebellious prince who broke the union with Poland - Henry of Valois (1575-1586)
first elected king and c. prince - Stefan Batory (1575-1586)
liberator of Polotsk from Ivan the Terrible and patron of the Jesuits - Zhigimont III Vase (1587-1632)
king of the swedes, ready, wends - Stanislav II August (1764-1795)
the last king and c. prince - Jagiellons
nine Slavic kings
Grand Dukes of Lithuania
nobility and fundators of the Red Church in Minsk.
priest and Belarusian nationalist, prisoner of the Trostinets camp
and the Belarusian epic "Song of the bison"
Commandant of the Kremlin, defender of Smolensk
castellan of Gartha, right hand of Gediminas
rebel 1830 and 1863, sculptor
Prince Nal'shansky and Pskov
ethnographer, economist, founder of the Belarusian national historiography, compiler of the Map of the Settlement of the Belarusian Tribe
first diplomat of the Republic of Ingushetia in Japan, author of the first Russian-Japanese dictionary
philomath, litvin, insurgent, scientist
"eternal wanderer", astronomer and artist
general of Middle Lithuania, the last knight of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
elders and governors of Minsk, funders of the development of the historical center of Minsk
Kostrovitsky coat of arms Baibuza and Vonzh
Jaska Haspadar's pad Wilni, national hero
ethnographer, academician, compiler of the "Map of the settlement of the Belarusian tribe"
national hero of Belarus, Poland and the USA
sculptor
"belarus numar adzin va ўsіm svetse"
cornet from Orsha, the hero of the "Trilogy"
Archbishop of Polotsk, "St. Apostle of Unity"
colonel "lisovchikov"
Princes Ostrozhsky
defenders of the Grand Duchy and founders of Orthodoxy
There are two versions about the origin of the Ostrozhsky family. According to the first, they descended from the princes of Galicia, according to the second version, they were descendants of the Turov-Pinsk princes.
hero of the battle of Orsha
Prince Ostrozhsky Konstantin Ivanovich (1460 - August 10, 1530) - Lithuanian commander from the Orthodox family of Ostrozhsky, headman of Bratslav, Vinnitsa and Zvenigorod (1497-1500, 1507-1516, 1518-1530), headman of Lutsk and marshal of Volyn land (1507-1522) , kashtelyan Vilna (1511-1522), voivode Troksky (1522-1530), great Lithuanian hetman (1497-1500, 1507-1530).
The great commander of the wars with Muscovy 1487-1537, which determined the modern eastern border of Belarus. He became famous for his victories over the Tatars. He settled captive Tatars on the outskirts of his cities - Tatar settlements.
As a reward for the merits of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich in the fight against Moscow and the Tatars, Zhigimont I Stary issued a universal about his appointment as Pan of Vilna - Ostrozhsky entered the circle of the highest nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In the war with Moscow 1500-1503 Konstantin Ostrozhsky commanded troops in the battle on the Vedrosh River. On July 14, 1500, the Lithuanian army suffered the biggest defeat since the Battle of Vorskla. Ostrozhsky, along with many military leaders, was taken prisoner.
In 1506, after 6 years of captivity, the prince agreed to serve the Russian sovereign (according to Karamzin - "under the threat of the dungeon"). In 1507, under the pretext of inspecting the troops entrusted to him, Ostrozhsky left Moscow and fled to Lithuania. He was returned to his former eldership and the position of marshal of the Volyn land, thanks to which Ostrozhsky became the chief military and civilian commander of all Volhynia. He was again approved by the great hetman of Lithuania.
He remained in my memory as the winner in the battle of Orsha - the battle on September 8, 1514 during the war with Muscovy of 1512-1522, in which the 30,000th army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania fought, defeated the 80,000th Moscow army and stopped Moscow expansion for 250 years.
The Great Hetman was the backbone of the Greek Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - favors to the Orthodox, according to Zhigimont I the Old, were done for the sake of Konstantin Ivanovich. Ostrozhsky became the center around which all the strong Orthodox magnate families of Belarus and Volhynia were grouped: Prince. Vishnevetsky, Sangushki, Dubrovitsky, Mstislavsky, Dashkov, Soltan, Gulevich and others.
With his support, Metropolitan Joseph II Soltan of Kiev, Galicia and All Rus' received a charter from King Sigismund I, which guaranteed the independence of the Greek clergy from secular power.
Konstantin Ostrozhsky was the founder of the Trinity and Prechistenskaya churches in Vilna. The Mikhailovsky Church in Synkovichi is also associated with his name (according to the time of construction and architectural similarity with the Trinity Church).
Ostrozhsky Konstantin (Konstantin-Vasily) Konstantinovich
fundator of education
Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky (also Vasily-Konstantin; 1526-1608) - head of the Ostrozhsky family, headman of Vladimir and marshal of the Volyn land (1550-1608), governor of Kiev (1559-1608), patron of the Orthodox faith.
He spent his childhood and youth in Turov. The son of the Grand Hetman of the Lithuanian Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky and Princess Alexandra from the Olelkovich-Slutsky family, descendants of Grand Duke Olgerd. The last representative of the family - St. Righteous Sofia Slutskaya - Sofia Yurievna, Princess Slutskaya (1585-1612), wife of Janusz Radziwill. Catholic, canonized by the Orthodox as the Righteous. Her relics are kept in the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Minsk.
He took an active part in the signing of the Articles of Henry, was a central figure among the defenders of Orthodoxy at the conclusion of the Union of Brest. He took care of the development of education, publishing books, establishing schools, providing patronage to scientists. He founded the Ostroh Printing House. Pioneers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets worked in it, who printed the Ostrog Bible - the first completed edition of the Bible in Church Slavonic.
PS.
Probably, today it is difficult for many to imagine such a leader - the pillar of Orthodoxy, who builds churches without tsybulins and defends the independence of his land from Moscow.
Probably, it would also be difficult for them to imagine that some kind of Orthodox Church would carry the cultural heritage and traditions of their country.
http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enc_biography/97011/Ostrogsky be-x-old.wikipedia.org
be.wikipedia.org
www.pl.wikipedia.org
uk.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
In the 14th century, when in eastern Rus' Moscow considered itself the embryos of a single Russian state, revolutions took place in the west, inclining the other half of Rus' towards political and social alienation from the Russian world. In the first quarter of this century, the Lithuanian prince Gedimin, the son of Vitenes, a man of extraordinary talents, conquered the Belarusian and Volyn cities, with their lands, expelled the main prince in the Volyn land of Leo from Lutsk, then in 1319-20. on the Irpen River (Kyiv province), he defeated the princes of the house of St. Vladimir who united against him, took possession of Kiev and Pereyaslavl with their lands. The consequence of these conquests was that the princely house of St. Vladimir completely lost its significance in the west. Other princes fled, others were reduced to the rank of subordinate rulers, and their place in the sense of appanage princes was replaced by princes of Lithuanian origin. Gediminas divided the Russian possessions conquered by him between his children and relatives; in Volyn he became prince Lubart, in Novogorodok Koriat, in Pinsk Narimunt; in Kiev, Prince Montvid was placed as assistant to Gediminas, etc. These Lithuanian princes adopted Orthodoxy and the Russian nationality, and their closest offspring became Russified to such an extent that there were no signs of their former origin in them. This coup, in essence, was only dynastic; but the difference between the order of affairs under the princes of the house of St. Vladimir and under the princes of the Gedimin house consisted in the fact that the princes of the Lithuanian house depended on the Grand Duke, who was in Lithuania, and with their destinies were in his fief submission. The Polotsk and Vitebsk lands had previously been under the rule of the princes of the Lithuanian tribe, who probably reached the reign by choice, and later these lands were subordinate to Gediminas, and then were already under the rule of the princes of his family.
Following the conquest of the Russian lands by Gediminas, another coup took place in Chervona Rus. Upon the death of the chief prince of this land, a direct descendant of King Danil, Yuri II, the Galician and Vladimir boyars called for Prince Boleslav of Mazovetsky, a descendant of Danil of Galicia in the female line; but this prince converted to Catholicism, consequently showed disdain for the Orthodox faith, surrounded himself with foreigners and mistreated the Russians; he was poisoned, and in 1340 the Polish king Casimir, as an avenger for Boleslav, took possession of Lvov and all Galician land, as well as Volhynia, but after that he had to endure a long struggle with the Russians who defended their independence. The main figure in this struggle on the Russian side was Prince Ostrozhsky, named Danilo, otherwise Danko: he was a descendant of Roman, one of the sons of Danil Galitsky; his hatred for the Polish rule was so great that Danilo Ostrozhsky led the Tatars to Poland. With him at the same time was the son of Gediminas Lubart, baptized under the name of Theodore. After a long bloodshed, Casimir kept only part of Volhynia. Since then, the lands that came under the rule of Poland remained with her forever and began to gradually accept Polish influence in their internal structure of life and language.
The son of Gediminas, Grand Duke Olgerd, expanded the Russian possessions inherited from his father: he annexed the Podolsk land to his state, driving out the Tatars from there. Rus' subject to him was divided among the princes, whom, however, Olgerd, a man of strong character, held in his hands. In Kiev, he planted his son Vladimir, who gave rise to a new family of Kyiv princes, who ruled there for more than a century and are usually called Olelkovichs, from Olelko, or Alexander Vladimirovich, Olgerd's grandson. Olgerd himself, twice married to Russian princesses, allowed his sons to be baptized into the Russian faith, and, as the Russian chronicles say, he himself was baptized and died as a hermit. Thus, the princes who replaced the family of St. Vladimir in Rus' became just as Russian in faith and in the nationality they adopted, as were the princes of the family that preceded them. The Lithuanian state bore the name of Lithuania, but, of course, it was purely Russian and would not cease to remain completely Russian in the future, if the son and successor of Olgerd on the grand ducal dignity of Jagiello (otherwise Jagiello) in 1386 did not marry the Polish queen Jadwiga. As a result of this marriage, he converted to Catholicism, became a zealous champion of the newly adopted faith and, indulging the Poles, patronized both the spread of the Catholic faith in the Russian lands and the introduction of the Polish people in Rus'. At this time, the germ of a phenomenon was laid, which later for many centuries was a distinctive feature of the mutual relations between Rus' and Poland. The concept of faith closely merged with the concept of nationality. Whoever was a Catholic was already a Pole; who considered himself and was called Russian, he was Orthodox, and belonging to the Orthodox faith was the most obvious sign of belonging to the Russian people. Jagiello was a man of soft heart, weak will and limited mind. He left Lithuania and Russia to the control of his cousin Alexander Vitovt, who was distinguished by ambitious plans, but at the same time by the inability to bring them to the end. Vitovt constantly hesitated and fell into contradictions, thought about the independence of his Russian-Lithuanian state, but he himself accepted Catholicism in the context of the Russian people, who firmly stood for Orthodoxy, yielded to the Poles in everything and pacified their claims. Jagiello granted the Lithuanian and Russian landowners those free, independent rights, which relieved them of their fief duties, the rights that the Poles enjoyed in their own country. But Jagiello extended these advantages in Lithuania and Rus' only to those who accepted the Roman faith. In 1413, the first connection between Lithuania and Poland took place. The Poles and Lithuanians undertook to consult one with the other in the choice of rulers, not to undertake wars one without the other, and to gather at congresses for general advice on their mutual affairs. Having concluded such an agreement, Vitovt after that constantly made attempts to destroy it, dreamed of a Russian-Lithuanian state, but did not achieve it and nevertheless remained in history one of the most important preparers for the enslavement of Rus' by Poland. The Russians did not tolerate him, realizing that the state he wanted to create would not be Russian. The brother of Vitovt Svidrigello (otherwise Svidrigailo), who retained the Orthodox faith and was married to the Tver princess Juliana Borisovna, did not treat the Russian people in the same way. This man, like Vitovt, was guided by his own ambition, but surpassed the first in intelligence and fidelity of sight. His goal was to become an independent Russian-Lithuanian sovereign, independent of the Polish king, but he realized that for this he needed to go along with the Russian people. For half a century, Svidrigello fought against Poland, being at the head of the Russian people, who were very attached to him for a long time. This struggle took place during the life of Vytautas; after the death of the latter, Svidrigello became the Grand Duke of Lithuania, also as Jagiello's assistant, which Vitovt was, but did not double and hesitate, like Vitovt, but immediately began to openly act as an independent Russian sovereign, and attempted to take away those Russian possessions from Poland that were attached to it directly. The Poles, in collusion with the Lithuanian lords who converted to Catholicism, overthrew Svidrigell, and instead of him, Vitovt's brother, the Catholic Sigismund, who recognized himself as a fief dependent on Poland, was appointed Grand Duke of Lithuania. But Rus' was behind Svidrigella. A stubborn, bloody struggle continued for several years not only against the Poles, but also against the Lithuanians, supporters of Sigismund; finally, Svidrigello himself, already entering old age, was tired of leading it, and, moreover, both his actions and circumstances deprived him of support among the Russian people.
The descendants of Fyodor Ostrozhsky, who fought for the independence of Rus' for so long, remained loyal to Poland, just as in general the Russian upper class, which saw inexhaustible benefits for itself in uniting with Poland, was faithful to it. In addition to the unconditional right to own their family estates, paying almost nothing to the treasury, the Russian pans, in accordance with Polish custom, received state property, called starosts, for life, with the obligation to give a quarter of the income from them for the upkeep of the troops and the support of fortifications. All this naturally tied them to the country from which such benefits flowed for them.
The great-grandson of Fyodor Ostrozhsky, famous for his struggle for Rus' against Poland, was the famous Konstantin Ivanovich, the Lithuanian hetman, a faithful servant of the Polish king, who was captured by Ivan III and then avenged his captivity by the defeat inflicted on the Moscow army near Orsha. Hostility towards Orthodox Moscow and faithful service to the Catholic king did not prevent him from being famous for Orthodox piety. He generously built and decorated Orthodox churches, at the same time he started schools for children at the churches and, thus, laid the foundation for Russian enlightenment.
His son Konstantin Konstantinovich was the governor of Kyiv and one of the most distinguished and influential lords of Poland and Lithuania for more than half a century, and, moreover, in the most glorious and eventful era of Polish history. He did not differ either in military exploits or state deeds; on the contrary, from modern letters of the Polish kings, we learn about him that he incurred reproaches for negligence in protecting the voivodship entrusted to him, left the Kiev castle in a sad state, so that Kiev could be constantly devastated by the Tatars; in addition, he did not pay taxes following from his elders. In his youth, as they say, he declared himself in domestic life in a not entirely plausible way: so, by the way, he helped Prince Dimitri Sangushka to take away his niece Ostrozhskaya by force. Some features of his life show in him a vain and vain pan. He possessed great wealth: in addition to family estates, which included up to eighty cities with several thousand villages, he owned four huge elderships granted to him in southern Rus'; his income reached a million zlotys a year. Under such circumstances, Konstantin Konstantinovich paid a large amount to one castellan only for the fact that twice a year he had to stand at his chair during dinner; for the sake of originality, he kept a glutton at his court, who surprised the guests by eating an incredible amount of food at breakfast and dinner. Not so much the personal abilities of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, but his brilliant position gave him great importance and placed him at the center of the mental activity that arose at that time in Rus'. Like the nobles of his time, he showed himself to be a supporter of Poland, at the famous Sejm of 1569 he signed the annexation of Volhynia and the Kiev province to the Polish kingdom for eternity, and by his example he greatly contributed to the success of this matter. Being Russian, and considering himself Russian, he, however, submitted to the influence of Polish education and used the Polish language, as his family letters show. Remaining in the faith of his fathers, Ostrozhsky, however, inclined towards the Jesuits, let them into his possessions and especially caressed one of them, named Motovil: this is clearly seen from Kurbsky's letters to him. The Moscow exile reproached Ostrozhsky for the fact that Ostrogsky had sent him Motovil's work and made friends with the Jesuits. “O my beloved sovereign,” Kurbsky wrote to him, “why did you send me a book written by an enemy of Christ, an assistant to the Antichrist and his faithful servant? With whom are you friends, with whom do you communicate, whom do you call for help! .. Accept me, your faithful servant, advice with meekness: stop making friends with these adversaries, crafty and evil. No one can be a friend of the king if he makes friends with his enemies and holds him like a snake in his bosom; I beg you three times, stop doing this, be like your forefathers in the zeal of piety. Thus, this Russian pan succumbed to the Jesuit machinations. Subsequently, it is noticeable that Ostrozhsky succumbed to the influence of Protestantism. In one of his letters to his grandson, the son of his daughter, Radziwill, he wrote an instruction that he should not go to the church, but advised him to go to the Calvinist meeting and called them followers of the true law of Christ. However, his passion for Protestantism came from the fact that the illustrious prince saw the Christian deeds of the Protestants. Ostrozhsky respectfully pointed out that they had schools and printing houses, that their pastors were distinguished by good morals, and opposed them with the decline of church deanery in the Russian church, the ignorance of priests, the material willfulness of archpastors, and the laity's indifference to matters of faith. “The rules and statutes of our church,” he said, “are despised by foreigners; our co-religionists not only cannot stand up for God's church, but even laugh at it; no teachers, no preachers of God's word; everywhere the smoothness of hearing the word of God, frequent apostasy; I have to say with the Prophet: who will give water to my head and a source of tears to my eyes!
Some Russian people took advantage of this mood of the noble pan and prompted Ostrozhsky to become, to some extent, the engine of the intellectual and religious revival in Polish Rus'. Probably, Kurbsky's convictions and reproaches greatly contributed to this mood. Ostrozhsky respected Kurbsky; Ostrozhsky sent him various essays for viewing, and, among other things, a wonderful book by the Jesuit Skarga "On the One Church", written on purpose with the aim of preparing the union. Kurbsky returned this book to Ostrozhsky with the same reproaches as Motovil's work; for his part, Kurbsky sent his translation from the Latin of "The Conversation of John Chrysostom on Faith, Hope and Love", and was angry with Prince Ostrozhsky when the latter reported Kurbsky's translation to some Pole, whom Kurbsky called "an unlearned barbarian who imagined himself a sage" . The Moscow exile, seeing the growing influence of the Jesuits in his new homeland, tried with all his might to oppose them, as well as the dominance of the Polish language. When Ostrozhsky, who liked Kurbsky’s writing, advised to translate it into Polish for greater distribution, Kurbsky rejected this proposal: “If not a few scholars agreed,” he wrote, “they are unable to literally shift the grammatical subtleties of the Slavic their "Polish barbaria". Not only with the speech of Slavic or Greek, and with their favorite Latin, they can not cope. Then among the Russian lords it became a custom, for the sake of enlightenment, to entrust the upbringing of children to the Jesuits. Kurbsky spoke with praise in general about the desire to teach children the sciences, but he did not see any use from the Jesuits. “Already many of the parents (he wrote to Princess Chertorizhskaya) of the families of princely, gentry and honest citizens gave their children to study the sciences, but the Jesuits did not teach them anything, but only, taking advantage of their youth, turned them away from orthodoxy.” Judging by Kurbsky's letters to various people, one can probably assume that this Moscow fugitive had a strong influence on the activities of Prince Ostrogsky in the field of protecting the faith and reviving book education, since he was constantly in close relations with Ostrogsky.
The germs of the intellectual and religious movement in Polish-Lithuanian Rus' appeared at the beginning of the 16th century. The Polochanin Skorinna translated the Bible into Russian and printed it in Czech Prague, due to the lack of a printing house in Rus'. In the middle of the 16th century, Protestantism spread in Lithuania contributed to the literary awakening of Russian speech. In 1562, there was a printing house in Nesvizh, and Simon Budny, famous in his time, a man of great learning, printed a Protestant catechism in Russian. A little later, the Lithuanian hetman Grigory Alexandrovich Khodkevich founded a printing house in his estate Zabludovo; the typographers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets, who had left Moscow, arrived there to see him: they printed there, in 1569, an explanatory Gospel, a large folio. It was the work of the famous Maxim Grek, later reprinted in the same form in Moscow. But Khodkevich's printing house was, apparently, only a temporary panorama whim. After the death of Grigory Khodkevich, the heirs did not support the institution. The typographer Ivan Fedorov moved to Lvov, and then to Ostrog, and it was here that a printing house was founded, laying a firmer foundation for literary and book printing in southern Rus'. In 1580, the Slavic Bible was printed for the first time on the orders of Ostrozhsky. In the preface to the Bible, on behalf of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky, it was said that he was prompted to this work by the sad state of the church, trampled on everywhere by enemies and tormented without mercy by merciless wolves, and no one is able to resist them due to the lack of spiritual weapons - the word of God. In all the countries of the Slavic family and language, Ostrozhsky could not find a single correct list of the Old Testament and finally received it only from Moscow through the mediation of Mikhail Garaburda. At the same time, Prince Ostrozhsky communicated with Rome, with the islands of the Greek archipelago (with the Candian ones), with the Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople, with Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian monasteries in order to get copies of the Holy Scriptures from there, both Hellenic and Slavic, and wished to be guided by the advice of people, versed in writing. The first printed Bible published by Ostrozhsky constitutes an epoch in Russian literature and in general in the history of Russian education. The Bible was followed by a number of publications, both liturgical books and various works of religious content. Between them, an important place is occupied by the book: “On the One True and Orthodox Faith and the Holy Apostolic Church”, written by the priest Vasily and printed in 1588: this book served as a refutation of the work of Skarga, published in Polish under almost the same title, and was intended to protect the Eastern Church against the reproaches made by the adherents of the Latin Church. Here questions are considered that constitute the essence of the difference between churches: about the procession of the Holy Spirit, about the power of the pope, about unleavened bread, about spiritual celibacy, about Sabbath fasting. This book was of great importance in its time, because it introduced the essence of those questions that were to become the subject of live competitions; Orthodox readers could learn from this book: what and how should they object to the convictions of the Western clergy, who then launched their propaganda among the Russian people. The Ostroh printing house also printed several books of religious content: “The Sheets of Patriarch Jeremiah” and “Dialogue of Patriarch Gennady” (in 1583), “Confession on the Procession of the Holy Spirit” (1588). In 1594, Basil the Great's book "On fasting" was published in a large folio, and in 1596 "Margaret" by John Chrysostom. At the same time as the printing house, in 1580, Ostrozhsky founded the main school in Ostrog and, in addition, several schools in his possessions. The rector of the main Ostroh school, the ancestor of higher educational institutions on Russian soil, was the Greek scientist Kirill Lukaris, who later received the rank of Patriarch of Constantinople. In addition to Ostrog, Prince Ostrogsky opened a printing house in the Derman Monastery.
At the same time, another important engine for the awakening of intellectual life in Rus' was the establishment of brotherhoods, partnerships with moral and religious goals, which included without distinction people of all classes, but certainly belonged to a single church. Such brotherhoods began to emerge from imitation of Western ones. The first of these brotherhoods in Polish Rus', which received historical significance, was Lvov, founded with the blessing of Patriarch Joachim of Antioch, who visited the Russian region in 1586. Its main goals were the upbringing of orphans, charity for the poor, assistance to the victims of various misfortunes, the ransom of prisoners, the burial and commemoration of the dead, help during public disasters - in general, charity work. Members had their own specific gatherings and each contributed six groschen to a common mug. Then, under the brotherhood, a school, a printing house and a hospital were started by the townspeople. In addition to the Holy Scriptures, Slavic grammar was taught at the school along with Greek, and for this purpose a Hellenic-Slavic grammar was compiled and printed, in which the rules of both languages were comparatively expounded. Private teaching was restricted: everyone could only teach their own children and family members. Following the model of the Lvov brotherhood, the Trinity brotherhood was established in Vilna, and then brotherhoods began to be founded in other cities. Of these, Lvov was granted seniority. The mere fact that people of all classes came together in the name of the patristic faith, the improvement of morality and the expansion of the range of concepts, had an effect on raising the spirit of the people. Patriarch Joachim, establishing the Lvov brotherhood, entrusted him with supervision over the fulfillment of their spiritual duties, as well as over the piety and good morals of both the clergy and the laity; in this way the clergy became dependent on the public court of secular people: this was completely opposite to the views of the Western clergy, who always jealously sought to ensure that people who did not belong to the clergy blindly obey the instructions of the clergy, and did not dare to talk about matters of faith, otherwise as under the guidance of the spiritual, and did not dare to condemn their deeds. But the foundation of brotherhoods was not to the heart of the Russian highest spiritual dignitaries either. Bishop Gideon of Lvov immediately entered into a hostile relationship with the Lvov brotherhood.
The structure of the Orthodox Church in Rus', subject to Poland, was in a sad state. The highest spiritual dignitaries, coming from noble families, instead of going through the ladder of monastic ranks in accordance with Orthodox customs, received their places directly from the secular rank, and, moreover, not by trial, but by connections, thanks to the patronage of the strong or through bribery, endearing themselves to the royal courtiers. Bishops and archimandrites managed church estates with all the privileges of court and arbitrariness of secular lords of their time, kept armed detachments, according to the custom of secular owners, in case of quarrels with neighbors, allowed themselves violent raids and in their home life led a lifestyle that was completely inappropriate to their dignity. . There were examples that noble pans asked the king for episcopal and rectory places for themselves and, remaining uninitiated, used church bread, as they were then expressed. One contemporary notes: “The rules of the Holy Father do not allow ordaining a priest younger than thirty years of age, but we sometimes allow a fifteen-year-old. He does not know how to read in warehouses, but he is sent to preach the word of God; he did not manage his house, but he is entrusted with the church order. Bishops, archimandrites, abbots had brothers, nephews, children, who were given church property for management. The luxurious life of the highest dignitaries led to the oppression of subjects in church estates. “You,” the Athos monk denounced the Russian bishops, “take away oxen and horses from poor villagers, tear out monetary tribute from them, torture, torment with work, suck blood from them.” The lower clergy were in extreme humiliation. Poor monasteries were converted into farmsteads, the lords set up kennels in them for their hunting, and the monks were ordered to keep dogs. Parish priests endured both from the bishops and from secular people. The lords treated them rudely, arrogantly, burdened them with taxes in their favor, punished them with imprisonment and beatings. The secular owner of the village appointed in it such a priest as he pleased, and this priest did not get angry at the clap in relation to the owner; the master sent him with a cart, drove him to his work, took his children into the service. A Russian priest, a contemporary remarks, was a perfect peasant in his upbringing; did not know how to behave decently; there was nothing to talk about with him. The title of presbyter reached such contempt that an honest person was ashamed to enter it and it was difficult to say whether the priest was more often in church or in a tavern. Often they served divine services in a drunken state with seductive antics, and usually the priest, while performing the divine service, did not at all understand what he was reading, and did not even try to understand. With such a state of the clergy, it is clear that the common people lived their ancient pagan life, preserved pagan views and beliefs, celebrated pagan festivities according to their great-grandfather customs and did not have the slightest idea about the essence of Christianity, and the upper class began to be ashamed of their belonging to the Orthodox religion; Catholics supported this false shame with all their might. The Jesuit Skarga, a favorite of King Sigismund III, even scoffed at the liturgical language of the Russian Church in such expressions: “What kind of language is this? Philosophy, theology, and logic are nowhere taught there; there can’t even be grammar and rhetoric on it! Russian priests themselves are unable to explain what they read in church, and are forced to ask others for explanations in Polish. This language is nothing but ignorance and delusion.”
Under the conditions of that time, it was only possible to raise the falling church and popular piety by forming the center of rebirth not in the clergy, but outside of it, in worldly life. The brotherhoods were to become the main instrument of this revival. Patriarch Jeremiah, passing through southern Rus' in 1589, approved the rights of the Lvov brotherhood and even expanded them: he freed the brotherhood from the dependence of the local ruler and from any other secular and spiritual authority, did not allow any other Orthodox school in Lvov, except for the brotherly one, left behind him supervised the episcopal court and, on the complaint of the brotherhood, imposed a ban on the Lvov Bishop Gideon Balaban. Balaban turned to the Lvov Roman Catholic Bishop, and the first of the then Russian bishops declared his desire to obey the pope.
During his stay in southern Rus', Patriarch Jeremiah deposed the Kievan Metropolitan Onesiphorus the Girl under the pretext that he had previously been a bigamist, and instead of him consecrated Michael Ragoza, who, apparently, had already been set up by the Jesuits. The patriarch was wrong about this man. But he was even more mistaken in that, without giving full power to the metropolitan, he appointed as his exarch (viceroy) Bishop of Lutsk Cyril of Terletsky, a man of immorality and even accused of the most heinous atrocities, such as robberies, rapes and murders.
The Russian clergy was very dissatisfied with the patriarch because he gave the brotherhoods such power and put the clergy under the supervision of the laity: in addition, they complained about him for various extortions from the Russian clergy: submitting to the Turkish authorities, the patriarchs and the Greek saints in general were in such a position, that they needed alms collected in Orthodox lands. “We are such sheep,” said the Russian spiritualists, “which they only milk and shear, and do not feed.”
The next year after the departure of Jeremiah, the Metropolitan gathered in Brest a synod of Orthodox bishops. Everyone began to complain about the burden of dependence on the patriarch and grumbled about the brotherhood, especially the Lvov brotherhood, which, according to the charter of Patriarch Jeremiah in 1593, was under the direct jurisdiction of the patriarch. “How,” said the hierarchs, “some gathering of bakers, merchants, saddlers, tanners, ignoramuses, who think nothing of theological matters, are given the right to judge the court of the authorities established by the church and draw up sentences on matters relating to the church of God!” Everyone came to the conclusion that it is best to submit, instead of the Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Pope.
In 1593, in place of the deceased bishop of Vladimir, Adam Potii was appointed, who until that time was a secular pan and bore the title of Brest castellan. He had already been seduced from Orthodoxy into Catholicism, then feignedly converted to Orthodoxy with the intention of devoting himself to the cause of the union. He was a man of impeccable morals, he seemed pious, and he himself started a brotherhood in Brest. Ostrogsky respected him, moreover, Potii was related to Ostrogsky. The king, giving him the place of bishop, had in mind precisely that Potius could persuade the mighty Russian nobleman.
Not having time to persuade Ostrozhsky, the bishops came several times to interpret, and in 1595 they made a proposal to the pope about the union and elected Potius and Lutsk Bishop Cyril Terletsky as ambassadors to Rome on this matter. Potii informed Ostrogsky about this and reminded him that Ostrogsky himself was the first to speak of the union.
Ostrozhsky became angry, wrote to Potius that the Bishop of Vladimir was a traitor and unworthy of his rank, and on June 24 he wrote and sent a (probably printed) message to all the Orthodox inhabitants of Poland and Lithuania, praising the Greek faith as the only true faith in the world, informing that the chief leaders of the true of our faith, imaginary shepherds: the metropolitan and bishops, turned into wolves, apostatized from the eastern church, “attached themselves to the western ones” and intended to tear away from the faith all the pious “local region” and lie into destruction. “Many,” Ostrozhsky expressed, “from the inhabitants of the local region of the state of His Majesty my king, obedient to the saint of the Eastern Church, consider me the initial person in Orthodoxy, although I myself consider myself not great, but equal to others in orthodoxy; for this reason, fearing not to be guilty before God and you, I inform you of what I probably learned about, desiring to stand with you at the same time against adversaries, so that with God's help and with your diligence, those who prepared nets for us , themselves caught in these networks. What could be more shameful and lawless if six or seven villains rejected their shepherds, from whom they were appointed, consider us to be dumb cattle, dare to arbitrarily tear us away from the truth and lead us into destruction along with them?
Ostrozhsky asked the king to open a cathedral, which would be attended not only by the spiritual, but also by the secular. The king, caring about the success of the union, wrote a convincing letter to Ostrozhsky, urging him to stick to the union, and most of all pointed out that the Greek Church was under the rule of such a patriarch, who received his dignity at the behest of the infidel Mohammedans. In accordance with the prevailing Roman Catholic view that spiritual affairs should be the property of only spiritual ones, Sigismund did not want to allow a congress of secular persons on matters of faith, which not only Ostrozhsky wanted, but the bishops themselves, faking Ostrozhsky, declared a request to the king about the same. The king wrote: “Such a congress will only complicate matters; to take care of our salvation is the duty of our shepherds, and we must, without interrogation, do as they command, because the Spirit of the Lord has given us their leaders in life. But such convictions only irritated Ostrozhsky, since all this offended, among other things, his panorama pride, which inspired him to strive to be the first among his co-religionists.
Seeking permission from the king for a congress or council of secular people on matters of faith, Ostrozhsky and one of his courtiers sent an invitation to the Protestant cathedral in Torun to jointly oppose papism. The Orthodox prince wrote in such terms: “All who recognize the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are people of the same faith. If people had more tolerance for each other, if people looked with respect as their brothers praise God each according to their own conscience, then there would be fewer sects and rumors in the world. We must agree with everyone who only moves away from the Latin faith and sympathizes with our fate: all Christian confessions must defend themselves against "papers". His royal majesty will not want to allow an attack on us, because we ourselves may have twenty, at least fifteen thousand armed men, and Messrs. papezhniks can only surpass us in the number of those cooks whom priests keep instead of wives.
This message became known to the king, and he ordered Ostrozhsky to be reprimanded for disrespectful comments about the faith professed by the king, and especially for hinting at cooks.
Threats about the possibility of appearing to thousands of armed men had an important meaning. The spirit of willfulness dominated in Poland. The laws acted weakly, and instead of resorting to their protection, people who felt strong behind themselves dealt with their rivals themselves. Noble lords kept armed detachments from the gentry: raids on estates and yards were commonplace. Pans arbitrarily intervened even in the affairs of neighboring states. Daring men of all kinds formed gangs, the so-called "willful kups", and carried out various outrages. In southern Rus', the Cossacks grew from year to year, especially developed after successful campaigns in the Crimea and Moldavia. It was replenished with Russian people from the estates: hereditary lords and crowns (given to the lords in the form of elders), and through such an influx of fugitives who went to the Cossacks in opposition to the will of the lords, it acquired a hostile mood towards the lords and the gentry in general. In addition to the Cossacks, recognized in this rank and under the command of a senior or hetman, gangs were made up of the common people, calling themselves Cossacks, under the command of special leaders; such gangs, at the opportunity, easily joined real Cossacks and were ready to work with them to the detriment of their owners. In 1593, the Cossack hetman Kryshtof (Christopher) Kosinsky raised an uprising. The Cossacks attacked the owner's yards, ruined them, destroyed the gentry's documents. Kosinsky took possession of the Ukrainian cities and Kiev itself, thanks to the negligence of Ostrozhsky, the former Kiev governor: he, as we said, had long been, but unsuccessfully, reproached by the kings for the neglect of the Kiev castle. Kosinsky invaded the estates of Ostrozhsky and demanded an oath from the gentry and the people: Kosinsky clearly expressed his intention to tear Rus' away from Poland, destroy the aristocratic order in it and introduce a Cossack system in which there would be no difference in estates, everyone would be equal and rule with equal land rights. The danger threatened Poland with a political and social upheaval. The king appealed to the gentry of the southern Russian governors of Bratslav, Kiev and Volhynia, so that all people of the gentry rank took up arms against the enemy, who demands an oath to himself and tramples on the rights of the king and the state. Ostrozhsky gathered all the gentry who were in his vast estates, entrusted his superiors to his son Janusz and moved them against the rebel. Kosinsky failed, undertook to renounce his command over the Cossacks, and freed from trouble, he again started an uprising, but was killed near Cherkasy. Grigory Loboda was elected his successor in the dignity of hetman. Then, in addition to the Cossacks, who were under the command of Hetman Loboda, another Cossack militia appeared, masterful, under the command of Severin Nalivaik, whose brother Damian was a priest in Ostrog. Nalivaiko had a deep-rooted hatred for the gentry, due to the fact that Pan Kalinovsky, in the town of Gusyatin, took away the farm from Nalivaikov's father and the owner himself so beaten off that he died from beatings. Nalivaiko decided to continue the work of Kosinsky at a time when the bishops were about to subordinate the Russian Church to the pope and when Ostrozhsky in his message urged all the Orthodox inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland to resist the intrigues of the bishops. Nalivaiko began in Volhynia, and his uprising this time took on a somewhat religious tone. He attacked the estates of bishops and laity who favored the union, took Lutsk, where the anger of the Cossacks turned on the supporters and servants of Bishop Terletsky, turned to White Rus', took possession of Slutsk, where he stocked up with weapons, took Mogilev, which was then burned by the inhabitants themselves, captured in Pinsk the sacristy of Terletsky and took out important parchment documents with the signatures of clergy and secular persons who agreed to the union; Nalivaiko robbed the estates of the Bishop's brother Terletsky, taking revenge on him for the bishop's trip to Rome. Some Orthodox lords pacified Nalivaika out of hatred for the emerging union. Suspicion fell on Prince Ostrozhsky himself, since his brother Nalivaika lived on his estate, and this brother, the priest Damian, turned out to have horses that belonged to Pan Semashko, robbed by Nalivaik. Ostrozhsky himself, in his letters to his son-in-law Radziwill, wrote: “They say that I sent Nalivaika away ... Well, if anyone, then these robbers bothered me the most. I entrust myself to the Lord God! I hope that he, who saves the innocent, will not forget me either.” There is no reason to believe that Ostrozhsky actually patronized this uprising, especially since just before the appearance of Nalivaik on Volhynia, Ostrozhsky warned the pans about the willful ones, complained that they were ruining his estates, gave advice to the Commonwealth to take active measures as soon as possible and put out the fire before it had time to spread.
In the winter of 1595-1596, Nalivaiko joined forces with the Cossack hetman Loboda, and the uprising began to take on rampant proportions. The king sent hetman Zolkiewski against the Cossacks. The war with them stubbornly continued until the end of May 1596: the Cossacks, pressed by the Polish troops, crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper and were besieged near Luben: discord arose between them; Nalivaiko overthrew Loboda from hetmanship, killed him, became hetman himself, and was in turn overthrown, extradited to the Poles and executed by death in Warsaw.
When, thus, the Poles were engaged in taming the uprising of the Russians, which partly took on the character of a struggle against the union, in Rome the envoys from the Russian clergy, the bishops of Vladimir and Lutsk, were received with due honor, were honored to kiss the papal foot, and on December 2, 1595, on behalf of the Russian clergy read the confession of faith according to Roman Catholic teaching. At the beginning of 1596 they returned to their homeland. Here, opposition from the brotherhoods and from Ostrozhsky awaited them. In the Vilna brotherhood, the “Book of Cyril about the Antichrist” was published, composed by Stefan Zizaniy. The book was directed against papism; it proved nothing more or less than that the pope is the antichrist about whom the prediction was preserved, and the time of the union is the time of the antichrist's kingdom. This book was eagerly read by the clergy and literate laity. The king, hearing of its success, was very angry, ordered the book to be banned, and its author and his two accomplices to be seized and imprisoned. The Lvov brotherhood, for its part, opposing the undertakings of the union, so frightened their bishop that Gideon decided to retreat from the union and filed a protest in which he assured that if he signed the consent to the union on an equal basis with other bishops, he himself did not know what business, because he signed a white paper, and on this paper, after his signature, something was written that he did not want.
Ostrozhsky informed the eastern patriarchs; at his request, protosyncells (governors) were appointed: from the Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, from Alexandria - Cyril. The king announced that the Russian bishops should gather at the council in Brest by October 6, 1596 for the final approval of the union.
By the time appointed by the king, Ostrozhsky also prepared his own cathedral in Brest. This cathedral consisted of two patriarchal protosyncells, two eastern archimandrites, two Russian bishops, Gedeon of Lviv and Mikhail Kopytensky, Serbian Metropolitan Luke, several Russian archimandrites, archpriests and two hundred persons of the gentry rank, whom Ostrozhsky invited with him.
Protosyncellus Nikephoros presided over this Orthodox council. In accordance with the ancient customs of the church court, he sent the Kyiv Metropolitan a triple challenge to the cathedral for justification, but the metropolitan did not appear and announced that he and the bishops had submitted to the Western Church; then the Orthodox cathedral defrocked both the metropolitan and the bishops: Vladimir, Lutsk, Polotsk (German), Kholmsk (Dionysius) and Pinsk Jonah.
For their part, the clergy who accepted the union repaid those who did not accept it in the same way: they deposed the bishops of Lvov and Przemysl, Archimandrite Nikifor Tur of the Caves, and all the Russian clerics who were at the Orthodox cathedral. The verdict was sent to each of them in the following form: “Whoever counts you, cursed from us, in your former dignity, he himself will be cursed from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!”
Both sides appealed to the king. The Orthodox referred to the existing decrees, asked not to count the deposed clerics in their former rank, to take away their church estates and give them to those persons who, instead of them, would be elected. The king took the side of the Uniates and ordered the arrest of Nicephorus, at whom those who accepted the union were especially angry. Ostrozhsky took him on bail. The case was postponed until 1597.
This year, at the request of the king, Ostrozhsky himself brought Nikifor and brought him to trial by the senate. They tried to accuse Nicephorus of spying on the part of the Turks, and of witchcraft, and of bad behavior. Hetman Zamoyski himself accused him. It was impossible to accuse Nikifor, and the Poles did not have the right to judge him as a foreigner. Then Konstantin Ostrozhsky delivered a sharp speech to the king: “Your Majesty,” he said, “you are violating our rights, trampling on our freedom, violating our conscience. As a senator, I not only endure insults myself, but I see that all this leads to the destruction of the Polish kingdom: after this, no one's rights, no one's freedom are protected; riots are coming soon; Maybe then they'll come up with something else! Our ancestors, taking an oath of allegiance to their sovereign, and from him also took an oath in observing justice, mercy and protection. There was a mutual oath between them. Remember, your majesty! I am already in advanced years and I hope to leave this world soon, and you insult me, take away what is dearest to me - the Orthodox faith! Remember, your majesty! I entrust this spiritual dignitary to you; God will exact his blood on you, and God forbid that I see no more such violation of rights, on the contrary, may God vouchsafe me in my old age to hear about his good health and about the better preservation of your state and our rights!
Having spoken this speech, Ostrozhsky left the Senate. The king sent Ostrozhsky's son-in-law, Krishtof Radziwill, to bring back the agitated old man. “The king,” said Radziwill, “regrets your grief; Nikephoros will be free." Angry, Ostrozhsky did not want to return and said: "Come on sob and Nikifor zist." The prince left, leaving the poor protosyncellus Nikephoros to the mercy of the king. Nicephorus was sent to Marienburg, where he died in captivity.
In 1599, Ostrozhsky, with other pans and the nobility of the Russian faith, arranged a confederation with the Protestants for mutual protection against Catholic violence. But this confederation did not have important consequences.
Much more important in its consequences was the literary movement, which intensified after the union. The Ostroh printing house printed (in 1598) “An Inscription on the Sheet of Father Hypatius” (Potius) and the Sheets, that is, messages: eight of them were Meletios, Patriarch of Alexandria, in which the essence of Orthodoxy was expounded and the Orthodox people were encouraged to defend their religion. One of these messages (the third one) concerns the question of changing the calendar, a question that then very much occupied the minds. Orthodox pastors did not like this change precisely because it was an innovation: “the news of vain men of fickle souls, like dampness by the blow of unsteady winds.” In the opinion of honest shepherds, the change of Paschalia brings in its wake overwhelm and rebellion in the church, sedition, strife, and approach to Judaism; but even if this had not happened, then all the same there was no need to bring in “neotherism,” but it was better to stick to antiquity and obey the old people. (What is not the most pious and most reverent thing is to abide in various things together with the elders.) At the same time, it was noted that the calculations on which the new calendar is based do not have strength and, after three hundred years, you will have to “astronomy” again and invent new changes. The ninth of the sheets printed in this book concludes a message written by Ostrozhsky to Orthodox Christians at the very beginning of the union (we spoke about it above), and the tenth is an admonitional message from Athos monks. Among the books published at that time in Ostrog, the book “Apocrisis” (published at the end of 1597) under the pseudonym of Filalet, written, as they say, by Christopher Vronsky, a man like Ostrogsky, inclined towards Protestantism, is especially important. Instead of strict submission to the spiritual authorities in the matter of faith, she preached the equal free participation of secular people in church affairs, she called the doctrine of unconditional obedience to the church Judaism and argued that secular people can, at their discretion, disobey the spiritual and depose them. In 1598, the priest Vasily published a Psalter with a resurrection, another Psalter with a book of hours, in 1605 and 1606 the writings of Patriarch Meletius on the subject of the union, translated by Job Boretsky, and in 1607 the priest Damian, brother of Nalivaik, published "The Medicine for the Ossed Human Intent", where placed the message of Chrysostom to Theodore
Fallen and some words and poems, partly adapted to their time. Remarkable works appeared in Vilna, not only polemical, but also scientific, showing the emerging need for the education of youth; in 1596, a grammar of the Slavic language was published by Lavrentiy Zizaniy, an ABC with a brief dictionary, an Interpretation on the prayer "Our Father" and a Catechism, outlining the foundations of the Orthodox faith. Then Russian liturgical and religious-political works were published in other places.
This was the beginning of that South Russian and West Russian literature, which subsequently, in the middle of the 17th century, developed to a significant extent.
Ostrozhsky himself, in spite of the defense he rendered to Orthodoxy in the cause of the emerging union, as an aristocrat for whom the Polish system was too dear, was far from any decisive opposition to the violence of the authorities: he restrained others, teaching them patience. Thus, in 1600, he wrote to the Lvov brotherhood: “I am sending you a decree drawn up at the last Sejm, which is highly contrary to popular law and most of all holy truth, and I give you no other advice than just such that you patient and waiting for God's mercy, until God, in his goodness, inclines the heart of his royal majesty to offend no one and leave everyone in their rights.
In this council, the future impotence of the Russian aristocracy in the matter of defending the patristic faith was already visible.
On the complaint of the Kyiv and Bratslav provinces, the king appointed a trial between the Uniates and the Orthodox at the Seimas.
Then Ragoza died: his place in the rank of Metropolitan of Kyiv was taken by Hypatius Potius. Appearing together with Terletsky at the court appointed by the king, he represented that spiritual matters are not subject to the verdict of a secular court, that, in accordance with divine law, the laws of the kingdom and Christian rights, they are subject only to a spiritual court. The Uniates pointed to all the privileges that existed until that time, given to the Greek Church, as documents that now exclusively belong by right only to those who recognized the Roman high priest as the head of their church. The king, with the advice of his plenipotentiaries, recognized their arguments as completely just and promulgated a charter, according to which the new metropolitan and bishops, who are under the primacy of the metropolitan, were granted the right to use their rank, in accordance with the previous privileges given to dignitaries of the Greek faith, to manage church estates and create spiritual court. The king did not recognize any other eastern church in the Polish Commonwealth, except for the one already united with the Roman one. All those who did not recognize the union were in his eyes no longer confessors of the Greek faith, but renegades from it. The same view was shared with the king by all Catholic Poland and Lithuania.
Ostrozhsky ended his life in February 1608 at a ripe old age. His son Janusz converted to Catholicism during the lifetime of his parent; the other son, Alexander, remained Orthodox, but his daughters all adopted Catholicism, and one of them, who owned Ostrog, Anna-Aloysia, was distinguished by fanatical intolerance towards the faith of her forefathers.
The upper class in Poland was omnipotent, and of course, if the Russian gentry remained firmly in the faith and firmly resolved to stand for the paternal faith, no intrigues of the king and the Jesuits would be able to overthrow it.
But that was precisely the misfortune that this Russian gentry, this upper Russian class, which was too profitable to be under the rule of Poland, could not resist the moral oppression that then weighed on the Orthodox faith and the Russian people. Having become related to the Polish gentry, having mastered the Polish language and Polish customs, having become Poles according to the methods of life, the Russian people were unable to keep the faith of their fathers. On the side of Catholicism was the conspicuous brilliance of Western enlightenment. In Poland, the Russian faith and the Russian people were looked upon contemptuously: everything that was and responded to Russian, in the eyes of the then Polish society seemed masculine, rude, wild, ignorant, something that an educated and high-ranking person should be ashamed of. The Catholics had incomparably more means for education than the Orthodox, and therefore the children of the Orthodox lords studied with the Catholics. Incited by their teachers, who instilled in them a preference for Catholicism, having come out into the world in which, under the prevailing spirit of propaganda, they heard everywhere about the same preference, Russian youths inevitably assimilated that view of the faith and nationality of their forefathers, which they usually have on their native those who borrow something alien with the full conviction that this alien is a sign of education and gives honor and respect in the worldly environment in which they are destined to act. The descendants of Orthodox noble families who converted to Catholicism, looking back at the moral deeds of their forefathers, found themselves in the same mood in which their ancestors had been for many centuries when, leaving paganism, they assimilated Christianity. One by one accepted the new faith and were ashamed of the old. True, as always happens in transitional epochs, and in the era of the catholicization of the Russian gentry, for half a century and even a little longer, adherents of antiquity remained from the Russian upper class and declared their voice, but their ranks thinned more and more, and finally they were gone. ; in Polish Rus', a person who, by origin and status, belonged to the upper class, became unthinkable except with the Roman Catholic religion, with the Polish language and with Polish concepts and feelings. Since the time of the union in Rus', a desire has been revealed to raise the Russian church and the Russian people - to create a Russian education, at least for the first time, religious, but this desire came too late for the upper class of the Russian lands united with Poland. This upper class no longer needed anything Russian and looked at him with disgust, with hostility. It turned out that the union, invented at first to lure the Russian upper class, was also not useful to him; pans without her became pure Catholics; the union remained only a means for the destruction in the bulk of the rest of the people of the signs of the Orthodox faith and the Russian people. The union became an instrument of more national than religious purposes. To accept the union meant to turn a Russian into a Pole, or at least a semi-Polish. This direction appeared from the first time and was steadily persecuted in the coming times until the very end of the existence of the union. Despite the fact that at first the pope, in accordance with the decrees of the Florentine Union in the 15th century, approved the inviolability of the rites of the Eastern Church, already at the beginning of the 17th century, the Uniate clergy began to change worship, introduced various customs that were characteristic of the Western Church and did not exist in the Eastern Church or were positively rejected by the latter ( as, for example, a quiet mass, the service of several masses on the same day on the same throne, the reduction of services, etc.). Drawing closer and closer to Catholicism, the union ceased to be an Eastern Church, but became something mediating and at the same time remained the property of the common people: in a country in which the common people were reduced to extreme enslavement, the faith that existed for this people, could not enjoy equal honor with the faith that the masters professed; therefore, the union in Poland became a lower, common people's faith, unworthy of the upper class: as for Orthodoxy, in public opinion it became an outcast faith, the lowest, worthy of extreme contempt: it was the faith not only of the peasants in general, like the union, but the faith of the worthless Khlops, dissimilar or incapable, due to their savagery and inertia, to rise to a somewhat higher level of religious and social understanding, it was nothing more than a pitiful confession of contemptible incredulous, for whom there is no salvation even beyond the grave.
Vasily Konstantin Ostrozhsky a brief biography and interesting facts from the life of a prince, a wealthy magnate, a Kyiv governor, a cultural and political figure set out in this article.
Vasily Konstantin Ostrozhsky short biography
Vasily Konstantin Ostrozhsky was born on February 2, 1526 in the city of Turov in the family of the great Lithuanian hetman. Konstantin Ostrozhsky was the sole heir of his father and inherited a large estate with lands in Kyiv, Volyn, Galicia and Podolia, as well as land plots in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Due to his high position in society, he received an excellent education.
In 1550, he received from the Lithuanian prince the position of Vladimir elder and Volyn marshal. In the same year, Ostrozhsky married the daughter of Jan Tarnovsky (the future crown hetman), Sofia.
In 1559, the prince became the governor of Kyiv. He paid much attention to the defense of his lands from the raids of the Tatars - he held the 20,000th army at his own expense, and successfully repulsed the attacks of enemies. Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky became famous as a commander in wars with enemies, especially distinguished himself in the battle of Orsha in 1514.
The fact is that in 1512, Prince Vasily III of Muscovy begins another war against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Zhyamaitiysky and Russian. Vasily wanted to get into his possession the western Lithuanian lands, Polissya, Belarus, Podolia, the territory of the central Ukrainian lands and the Smolensk region. With wise strategic actions, he defeated the Moscow Tsar, providing the eastern front with more than 40 years of peace.
He also pursued an energetic colonial policy in the neighboring territories of the Bratslav and Kiev regions, founded new settlements, cities and castles. He was unofficially called "the uncrowned king of Rus'."
Among his most important achievements is the foundation of schools in Vladimir-Volynsky and Turov, the Ostroh Academy. Thanks to the assistance of Ostrozsky, a large library of Western European and Greek theological literature, dictionaries, reprints of ancient works, grammar and cosmography was collected. In 1575 Konstantin Ostrozhsky organized a printing house and invited a famous printer.
The prince did not forget about Ukrainian Orthodoxy, speaking out against the unification of Orthodox and Catholics and condemning the decisions of the Brest Cathedral.
At the end of his life Konstantin Ostrozhsky was the largest landowner of the Commonwealth after the king. He owned 2760 villages and 80 cities. On his initiative, many cities received the Magdeburg Law. He settled in Dubno Castle. Grand Duke Konstantin Ostrozhsky died on February 24, 1608 in Ostrog.
Ostrogsky interesting facts
He was one of the first princes who repelled the threat from Moscow to Ukraine, defeating the troops of Vasily III, Prince of Moscow.
He held the position of Kyiv governor for 49 years.
The prince founded the first two printing houses in Ukraine - in Dermani and Ostrog. Ivan Fedorovich, invited by him, created the Ostroh Bible, on which presidents still take the oath when they take office.
The prince's profit was 10 million gold a year - at that time it was a huge amount. He was the richest man in the Commonwealth and all of Europe.
Out of 63 battles, Ostrozhsky was defeated in only 2 battles.
From January 1553 he was married to Sofya Tarnovskaya. The couple had 5 children - sons Konstantin, Janush, Alexander and daughters Ekaterina Anna, Elizabeth.
Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky became famous as an ardent patriot of Lithuania, a major commander, statesman and at the same time as a defender of the Orthodox faith in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Konstantin Ivanovich received his initial upbringing under the guidance of his father's boyars, as well as his elder brother, Mikhail. In 1486, the Ostrozhsky brothers live in Vilna at the court of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir, where they revolve in the highest circle of the Volyn pans. At the same time, the princes of Ostrozhsky began to get accustomed to state affairs, having entered the retinue of the Grand Duke and accompanied him on journeys. In 1491, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich already received quite important assignments and enjoyed the full confidence of the Lithuanian Grand Duke. It is very likely that at that time he had already managed to advance from among the numerous Volyn princes and pans, which could be greatly facilitated by wealth and broad family ties. However, the rise of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich was greatly influenced, of course, by his personal merits, his military talent and experience. Hetman of Lithuania Peter Yanovich Beloy, on his deathbed pointed out to Alexander Jagiellon Konstantin Ostrozhsky as his successor. And Prince Konstantin Ivanovich in 1497 at the age of 37 was made hetman. In addition, the new hetman received a number of land grants, which immediately made him, already rich, the largest owner in Volhynia.
The activities of K. Ostrozhsky fell on a difficult period of aggravation of relations between Lithuania and Moscow, when the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, and then his son Vasily III, sought to subjugate the Russian lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Part of the princes and large magnates of Lithuania, among whom were the princes Vorotynsky, Odoevsky, Trubetskoy, Belsky, Mezetsky, Mozhaysky, with subject lands and cities, went over to the service of Moscow. The Lithuanian rulers tried to prevent this by force and retain the eastern territories of the Grand Duchy. This led to bloody wars, in which hetman K. Ostrozhsky played a prominent role. In the war of 1500-1503, the battle on the Vedrosh River in July 1500 became the central battle. 40 thousand people participated in it on both sides. The Lithuanian army was commanded by K. Ostrozhsky, the Moscow army was commanded by voivode Daniil Shchenya. At the beginning of the battle, the Russian advanced regiment lured the Lithuanian army to the other side of the river with an imaginary retreat, where it was unexpectedly attacked by the main forces of Moscow and surrounded. The Lithuanian regiments fled and suffered a crushing defeat. About 8 thousand people fell. Most of the military leaders, including K. Ostrozhsky himself, were captured. The victors captured all the Lithuanian artillery and convoy. The captive K. Ostrozhsky was sent under strict supervision to Vologda. At the same time, he was forced to go to the service of Moscow, and, obeying the circumstances, K. Ostrozhsky swore allegiance to Ivan III, was appointed governor and received considerable estates. However, in his heart he did not betray his fatherland and, when the opportunity presented itself in 1507, he fled from captivity. In Lithuania, K. Ostrozhsky was returned the title of Grand Hetman, and other positions were granted. During the war of 1512-1522, K. Ostrozhsky carried out a number of successful military operations. The largest battle took place near Orsha on September 8, 1514. From Moscow, 80 thousand people participated in the battle. The 35,000th Lithuanian army was commanded by K. Ostrozhsky. Having a numerical superiority, the Moscow governors allowed K. Ostrozhsky to cross the Dnieper without hindrance, planning then to destroy the bridges, cut off the Lithuanians' retreat, press them to the river and defeat them. But this plan was not carried out. In an effort to take revenge for the defeat at Vedrosha, K. Ostrozhsky, by a feigned retreat, lured the Moscow cavalry under the fire of his cannons, and then delivered crushing blows to the disordered ranks of the enemy. The battle ended with the complete defeat of the Muscovites. They lost up to 30 thousand people. Moscow governors were taken prisoner. It was the biggest defeat of Moscow in the wars with Lithuania. In 1517, K. Ostrozhsky undertook a campaign against Pskov, but met a courageous rebuff from the garrison of the Opochka border fortress, which upset the commander's plans. According to some sources, during his life K. Ostrozhsky won 63 victories and twice, by the will of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, made a solemn triumphal entry into Krakow and Vilnius. prince ostrog culture faith
Prince K. Ostrozhsky was the most powerful patron and benefactor of the Orthodox Church and the Russian cultural tradition in Lithuania. He renovated and built churches, generously endowed monasteries and parishes with lands and gifts, and in this he surpassed all his compatriots and co-religionists. He was repeatedly awarded special honors for his victories as a commander, enjoyed the respect of the people, the pans, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland. Therefore, his voice in defense of the interests of the Orthodox Church and Russian culture had a special power before the ruler of Lithuania. K. Ostrozhsky sought to mitigate laws that were unequal in relation to Orthodoxy. Despite the prohibition to build Orthodox churches, under the influence of K. Ostrozhsky, the Grand Duke departed from these prohibitions, and sometimes he himself provided patronage to Orthodox parishes. In 1506, the Prechistensky Cathedral in Vilnius was seriously damaged. Its main dome collapsed, cracks formed in the walls. In 1511, K. Ostrozhsky asked the Grand Duke for a letter to restore the temple and rebuilt it on the old foundation, placing a large dome in the middle and four towers at the corners. In 1514, before the battle with Moscow near Orsha, K. Ostrozhsky made a solemn vow victory to build two stone churches in Vilnius. The victory was followed by the fulfillment of the promise. At the request of K. Ostrozhsky, Grand Duke Sigismund temporarily lifted the ban on the construction of Orthodox churches in the Lithuanian capital. So, by the will of K. Ostrozhsky, the Trinity Church was built of stone on the site of the wooden one and the Nicholas Church was renovated.
Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky died at an advanced age on September 11, 1530 in Turov. He was buried in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
Literature
- 1. Narysy of the history of Belarus.
- 2. Wikipedia encyclopedia.
- 3. Lecture material.
Representatives of the princely Ostrozhsky family, named after the name of the family property in Volhynia, came from the Pinsk and Turov princes. Daniil, who lived in the middle of the 14th century, became the first prince of Ostrozhsky - he fought with the Poles in 1340, for which he received the Ostroh fortress, now a city in the Rivne region of Ukraine. One of his sons Fedor, who died in 1438, confirmed Jagaila’s privileges to Ostrog, rose to the rank of Lutsk headman, participated in the Battle of Grunwald, in 1420 freed Prince Svidrigaila, a rival and competitor of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt, in 1420 army of Sigismund Koributovich went to the Czech lands. In 1427, Vytautas the Great himself visited Fyodor Danilovich in Ostrog.
The new prince of Ostrozhsky was his son Vasily Fedorovich (circa 1390-1450), who rose to the post of governor of Turov. Prince Vasily fought for the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His son Ivan (circa 1430-1465) became famous for his victory over the horde of Crimean Tatars in 1454 near Terebovl, in which he was repulsed and full of almost ten thousand people. Prince Ivan Vasilievich married the granddaughter of Prince Vladimir of Kyiv and Slutsk, the son of the famous Olgerd Gediminovich. Around 1460, their son Constantine was born. A few years later, his parents died, little Konstantin was taken care of by the boyars of his father, and then by the voivode Martin Gashtold. Since 1486, Prince Konstantin began to visit the court of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Kazimir Yagailovich in Vilna. In 1491, he participated in the battle with the Tatars near Zaslavl, when the cavalry of Prince Semyon Golshansky defeated the horde.
In July 1492, the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Kazimir Jagailovich died. The war with the Moscow principality began - the troops of the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III the Terrible crossed the western border and occupied Vyazma. The fighting ended in peace in 1494 by the new Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander and Ivan III. In February 1495, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky participated as part of a delegation in a meeting near Molodechno of the bride of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Kazimirovich, Princess Elena, daughter of Ivan III.
The war with the raids of the Crimean Tatars went on constantly - only in 1496, the troops of Konstantin Ostrozhsky threw back the horde to Perekop three times - in battles near Mozyr, on the Usha River and near Ochakov. A year later, in 1497, Prince Konstantin became the great hetman of Lithuania - he was not yet forty years old. The Grand Hetman received Bratslav and Vinnitsa starostvos, lands and castles in Podolia in control. The modern Belarusian historian A. Gritskevich wrote about Prince Konstantin:
“Over the years of fighting the Crimean Tatars, K. Ostrozhsky gained combat experience (but with an enemy that was poorly organized and poorly armed). Yes, and the theater of military operations was large, on the wide expanses of the steppe. The experience was one sided. The Imperial Ambassador S. Herberstein, who was passing through Belarus to Moscow, wrote in his notes that Prince K. Ostrozhsky smashed the Tatars many times, using special tactics. He did not go forward when their detachment went to rob, but attacked when they had already taken the booty. When the Tatars reached a safe place, as it seemed to them, and stopped to rest, K. Ostrozhsky unexpectedly attacked them. Before the attack, he forbade his soldiers to kindle fires, and ordered food to be prepared in advance. All this was done with great care, and the attack was always unexpected for the enemy. K. Ostrozhsky attacked at dawn. Such tactics led to the complete defeat of the enemy.
At the beginning of 1500, on the side of the Moscow Tsar Ivan III, Semyon Belsky and several other sovereign princes. Prince Alexander sent an embassy to Moscow with a note that the Grand Duke of Moscow was taking into service the subjects of the princes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Ivan III rejected the protest, broke the truce and began hostilities. The embassy hut accused the Grand Duke of Lithuania of persecuting the Orthodox faith:
“He only ordered that the goddesses of the Roman law be placed in Russian cities, in Polotsk and in other places, and the zhon from husbands and children from their fathers are taken from their stomachs, they are baptized by force into the Roman law. Semyon Belsky, not wanting to be an apostate of Greek law and not wanting to lose his head, came to serve us with his fiefdom. So what is his betrayal in this?
Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Kazimirovich replied: “We are surprised that you believe those people who have forgotten their honor and soul and our salary, having betrayed us, their master, to you, more than us, you believe. Your people began to make great falsehoods in our lands, waters, and in tatba, and in robberies, and in robberies, and in many other things.
The troops of the Muscovite kingdom went in three streams to Bryansk, Vyazma, Toropets. The Crimean horde of Khan Mengli Giray moved to the Volyn lands. The creator of the "Chronicle of Lithuanian and Zhamoitskaya" wrote:
“The Grand Duke of Moscow, desiring a great expansion of his state, not respecting the truce, found such a reason for the campaign against Lithuania that Alexander, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, his daughter, Elena, who was with him, did not build a Russian church on the Vilna castle. The Tsar of Moscow, because of the church with Lithuania, broke the truce, agreed with Mengli Khan, the Tsar of Perekop, and with his relative Stefan of Volosh, and started a war against the Lithuanian lords.
In May 1500, an army led by K. Ostrozhsky left Vilna and, having traveled almost four hundred kilometers, entered Smolensk in June. At Dorogobuzh stood the Moscow army, led by a talented commander, Prince Daniil Sheney. Historians write that Muscovites had forty thousand soldiers, K. Ostrozhsky had thirty thousand. Some authors say that Prince Constantine had only five thousand soldiers, which does not seem real. On July 14, a battle took place on the Mitkovo field near the village of Lopatino on the Vedrosha River. The medieval "Chronicle of Bykhovets" wrote about the battle:
“Prince Konstantin and the pans and all the people who were with them, having consulted, decided: there will be few or many Muscovites - it doesn’t matter, only, taking God to help, fight with them, and not having fought, do not return back, and go into battle , and accept everything that should happen and what will be the will of God. And so deciding and deciding on that, they went on their way from Lopatin to Vedrosha for two miles through the forest, through deep mud, and with great difficulty barely passed the forest and quickly went to the field, where they met with the Muscovites, and agreed with them, and then they began fight among themselves, and on both sides many people were beaten, and others were wounded. The Muscovites turned back, and having crossed the river Vedrash, they returned to their large regiments and there, having taken up arms, they stood. The Litvins, as soon as they came to the river, quickly and hastily crossed the river and began to fight hard. Muscovites, on the other hand, thought that Lithuania was coming with great force against them from the forest, and relying on their strength, they boldly come out. And fearing this, the Muscovites could not fight them, and almost all of them fled. Then, when Lithuania entered the field, they saw and understood that there were not many Litvins. The Lithuanian army was no more than three and a half thousand horsemen, except for footmen, and Muscovites were forty thousand well-armed and well-trained horsemen, not counting footmen. And seeing how courageously and bravely such a small Lithuanian army came out, they were amazed, and then, as they had already seen everyone, then they moved together and firmly against the Lithuanian army. The Litvins, having begun to fight and seeing that there were many Muscovites, and few of them themselves, could no longer resist their onslaught, and fled. The Muscovites chased the Litvins, killed many, and caught others alive. Then hetman Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky and many other lords were full. Muscovites, returning from the battle, sent all the lords of the prisoners to the Grand Duke in Moscow.
In a six-hour battle, the Moscow army won - about eight thousand soldiers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania died, about five thousand were taken prisoner, many drowned in Vedrosha. Several hundred cavalry headed by the Smolensk governor left. Artillery and the entire convoy went to the Moscow army.
From Moscow, Konstantin Ostrozhsky was transferred to Vologda. In 1503, the Muscovite state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania signed a truce for six years - 20 cities and 70 volosts, Chernigov, Bryansk, Gomel, Starodub went to Moscow. The Italian A. Gvagnini, who left memoirs about his stay in Moscow at the beginning of the 15th century, wrote: “in one military campaign and in one year, Moskovin captured everything that Grand Duke Vitovt of Lithuania had been extracting for many years and with great difficulty.”
In 1505, Ivan III died, and his son Vasily III sat on the Moscow throne. He summoned K. Ostrozhsky from Vologda and once again offered the prince a service. The alternative was life imprisonment in Vologda. On October 18, 1506, K. Ostrozhsky swore allegiance to the tsar:
“I will be obliged to serve Vasily and his children until death, I can’t do any harm to him and his children and I can’t even think about it. If I deviate from all this in any way, punish me then he is free to die. And there will be no mercy of God for me either in this age or in the next.
K. Ostrozhsky was appointed to command the border troops. In August 1507, he managed to escape, he escaped from the chase and returned to Vilna at the end of September - “In the year 1507, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, the hetman of the Grand Duchy, came out of the Moscow prison, and was imprisoned for seven years from his defeat at Vedrosha.”
The new Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund gave him the post of headman of Bratslav, Volyn, Lutsk. The war with the Moscow kingdom and the Crimea continued, several great hetmans were replaced in a few years. The situation was aggravated by the change of grand dukes. The modern Belarusian researcher N. Bagadzyazh wrote in his 2002 work “Sons of the Belarusian Land”:
“The situation of the country, the power over which was shouldered by the 43-year-old king and grand duke, was very difficult. The gentry demanded that the prince protect their interests and rights, the treasury's revenues fell every year. Twenty-six magnate families, who owned a third of the land of the state, not without reason, considered themselves no less powerful than Sigismund. To all this, constant bloody skirmishes between the gentry groups were added. And most importantly, the country was devastated by wars with the Moscow principality and almost never-ending attacks by the Tatars. It got to the point that in order to stop the aggression of the Crimean khans, they began to pay off them. To raise funds for these annual "commemorations", a special tax was introduced, which was called the "ordinary".
Prince Konstantin Ostrogsky Sigismund again appointed the Grand Hetman of Lithuania. He defeated the horde of the Crimean Tatars several times, successfully fought against the Moscow troops - in October 1508, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Moscow State concluded another truce.
In 1509, Konstantin Ostrozhsky married Princess Tatyana Golshanskaya, receiving for her part of Golshan and Glusk, Smolevichi, Zhitin, Shashola, Svirana. He owned lands in Volhynia, Belarus, Lithuania, Turov, Dyatlov, Kopys, Slovenian, Lemnitsy, Tarasov, Smolyan, Susha - and became the second most important landowner in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Prince Konstantin again began to repulse the next attacks of the Crimean Tatars from 1510. The Belarusian author A. Martsinovich wrote about K. Ostrozhsky in his 1996 work “I got military glory”:
“In 1510, separate Tatar detachments reached almost Vilna. In this dangerous time for the Motherland, Ostrozhsky received special powers, the so-called "rights of a dictator." Now, in the conduct of hostilities, all princes, governors, gentry and other representatives of the rich strata of society were to be completely subordinate to him. In case of their refusal to carry out this or that order, he could punish them with "a throat and a prison."
A new war with the Muscovite state began in 1512. Moscow, Denmark, Saxony, Austria, the Teutonic Order jointly opposed the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was supposed to divide the occupied lands among the allies. In 1514, the troops of Vasily III stormed Smolensk - “From cannon and squealing fire and human screams and hubbub, as well as from the city people of the opposite battle, the earth trembled, and one did not see or hear the other, and the whole city was almost in smoke and flame didn't go up."
Moscow troops, following Smolensk, took Mstislavl, Dubrovno, Krichev. The 80,000-strong army of Vasily III near Orsha near the Krapivna River was met by thirty thousand soldiers of the Prince and Grand Hetman of Lithuania Konstantin Ostrozhsky. The Moscow troops were led by commanders I. Chelyadnin and M. Bulgakov-Golitsa. K. Ostrozhsky was assisted by Yu. Radziwill and I. Sapieha. The general battle of the war took place on September 8, 1514, five kilometers from Orsha. The troops of K. Ostrozhsky crossed the Dnieper without opposition from the Moscow troops - I. Chelyadnin self-confidently declared that "let them cross, it will be easier for us to defeat them right away."
The Russian army stood in three lines, the flanks were covered by cavalry, in front - a guard regiment, behind - a reserve. The front line stretched for five kilometers. There was almost no artillery. Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian troops stood in two lines, horse and foot regiments alternated with guns and squeakers. Orthodox priests on the one hand, Orthodox priests on the other side at eight o'clock in the morning served a prayer service in front of the troops.
I. Chelyadnin, using the numerical advantage, began to encircle the enemy. Several attacks were repulsed. K. Ostrozhsky himself led the counterattack:
“To fight, to run away with rubbish, it is better to lie down on the field with glory; now forward, children; now be men, the ranks of the enemy swayed; God is on our side, he gives protection from heaven.”
The battle was on all fronts. K. Ostrozhsky managed to apply the favorite tactic of the Moscow troops - a false retreat. With a cry of "Lithuania is running away," I. Chelyadnin's cavalry went on the attack. N. Bagadzhazh wrote:
“The cavalry of K. Ostrozhsky began to retreat. Moscow troops rushed after them. It seemed that they were about to cut themselves, like a cannon ball, into the backs of the "lords" running from them. However, they suddenly parted, and the muzzles of cannons looked at the Muscovites, who were almost celebrating their victory. A devastating volley at close range literally demolished the front ranks of the attackers. Those who remained alive began to wrap their horses, and after a few minutes they ran back. More volleys thundered, and then Ostrozhsky's cavalry rushed after them. They drove the enemies for several miles. Ostrozhsky fully paid for the defeat at Vedrosha.
Tens of thousands of soldiers died in the Moscow army. Some sources call thirty thousand, others - thirty-five thousand. Stryikovsky, in general, has forty thousand. Moreover, he adds that this is except for those who drowned in the Krapivna River. Contemporary historians write that the river stopped its course because of the large number of Moscow people who rushed from the steep bank and drowned in its waves. The governors Chelyadnin, Bulgakov-Golitsa and six more governors were captured, and more than five hundred boyar children. The entire convoy and artillery of the enemy was also captured.
The victory over the Moscow army received great international significance. Struck by this victory, the leaders of the states of Basil's allies realized that the struggle would be very difficult, and their alliance began to disintegrate.
Belarusian historian A. Gritskevich writes about the results of the Battle of Orsha:
“Losses of the Moscow troops as prisoners exceeded five thousand people. The chief governors I. Chelyadnin and N. Bulgakov-Golitsa, eight supreme governors, 37 commanders of a lower rank, two thousand children of boyars and more than two thousand other soldiers were captured. Among the spoils of war were all Moscow banners and firearms.
The losses of the victorious troops were small. Only four noble pans died, and about five hundred knights. The number of deaths of simple origin is not given. But in this battle there were many wounded.
In December 1514, the Grand Hetman of Lithuania returned in triumph to Vilna.
The war between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the State of Moscow continued with varying success until 1522. Two years before this, a peace treaty was signed by King Sigismund with the Crimean Khan, in 1521 - with the Teutonic Order. The armistice in Moscow was signed for five years, Smolensk remained the Muscovite state.
In 1522, Konstantin Ostrozhsky became the governor of Trok. Sigismund's letter read:
“Seeing the high merits in the glorious battles of the noble prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky, voivode Trotsky, our great hetman, headman of Bratslav and Vinnitsa, not only before us, but also in the reign of the glorious memory of our father Casimir and our brother Alexander, that his mercy never regretted of his means, but he was not afraid to lose his life in our services, and sacrificially accepted great wounds in battles and heavy suffering from the enemy.
In 1523, the widowed Prince Konstantin married a second time to Princess Alexandra Omelkovich.
In the winter of 1526–1527, another Crimean Tatar horde broke into Volhynia. On January 27, 1527, not far from Kyiv, the troops of the great hetman of Lithuania completely defeated the Tatars - Prince Konstantin received a triumph in Krakow. The modern Belarusian researcher G. N. Saganovich in his 1992 work “Defending his Fatherland” wrote about K. Ostrozhsky:
“He had no equal in battles with the Tatars and Muscovites - the main enemies of the country during his lifetime. Probably, there has never been such a prince who would have worked so tirelessly for the worthy defense of the state, who would not have spared his money for horse banners, equipping them at his own expense, who would have given his whole life so beautifully and worthily to the Fatherland. In her name, he deliberately violated the oath given under the name of God, for which the Moscow chroniclers called him "God's enemy and traitor."
Indeed, no one served the Grand Duchy of Lithuania more faithfully than Ostrozhsky, “the brother of the Russians in the church, but their terrible enemy in the field,” Russian historian N. Karamzin would exclaim with sadness through the centuries. But there is no contradiction here. He served only his country. And no one else."
A book was written about the victory over the Tatars and published in Nuremberg - Europe started talking about Konstantin Ostrozhsky.
The glorious commander Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky died during the epidemic of 1530 in Vilna and was buried in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The great Russian historian N. M. Karamzin wrote about him:
“In fact, no one served Lithuania and Poland more zealously than Ostrozhsky, the brother of the Russians in the church, but their terrible enemy in the field. Bold, vigorous, glorious, this Leader inspired the weak Lithuanian regiments: the noblest pans and ordinary soldiers willingly went into battle with him.
In the medieval Volyn chronicle,
"Praise to Pan Vilensky,
the elder of Lutsk and Bratslav,
marshal of the Volyn land, the great governor,
glorious and wise hetman
Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky.
In the year 7023 (1515), the month of August, the first day of August, the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Ivanovich, having an insatiable womb of a covetous man, having crossed the contract and kissing the cross, went from less to greater evil and began to extract some cities, the fatherland and grandfather of the heir to the great and glorious sovereign Sigismund, King Polish and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Russian, Prussian, Zhamoi and others. And Vasily Ivanovich took the great glorious city of Smolensk, because there is nothing worse for a person than to desire someone else's property, how to do meek and kind mercilessly and unkindly. This glorious king Sigismund kept his word given to the prince of Moscow unshakably and relentlessly in everything, but seeing his treachery and wanting to defend his homeland, the Lithuanian land, calling God for help and knowing his truth, with his princes and pans and with the brave and strong knights from his royal court went against Vasily Ivanovich, remembering the prophetic words that the Lord does not help the arrogant and arrogant, but provides mercy and help to the humble.
And, Prishov, he stood in Borisov on the great river Berezina against his enemy, the Grand Duke of Moscow, and sent his great voivode, the glorious and wise hetman Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky, with some of his princes and military lords, and outstanding and brave Lithuanian and Russian warriors from his yard.
And at that time, the pans of Lyash and glorious nobles, the knights of the Polish Crown, came to the aid of the great king Sigismund, and all together, calling God for help, armed with the order of their master king Sigismund, boldly moved against the great multitude of people of the prince of Moscow. When they, being at that time on the Drutsk fields, learned about the strength of the Lithuanian, they retreated beyond the large river Dnieper.
Let us recall the words of the great Nifont, who writes to faithful Christians: “The secret of the tsar must be guarded,” in other words: it is not good for everyone to reveal the sovereign’s secret business, but it is necessary to notify everyone about the deeds and courage of a kind and courageous person, so that later others would suffer from this and have courage. So in our time we happened to see such a good and courageous strategist - Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky, the great Lithuanian hetman.
First, with God's help, by order of his sovereign, the great King Sigismund, he made the necessary preparations for his army, united him in a brotherly, caring way. And how he, the glorious and great hetman Konstantin Ivanovich, came to the Dnieper River, near Orsha, a stone city, and saw that it would not be easy to cross the waterway, then how a God-fearing man and military leader rushed to the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity and to the great miracle worker of Christ's saint Nicholas and, falling to his knees, prayed to God.
Prince Konstantin ordered his front men to swim, and the latter already crossed as if over a ford. And so quickly, on the large field of Orsha, opposite the Muscovites, they lined up.
Oh, great Lithuanian knights, with your courage and bravery you became like the Macedonians of Tsar Alexander, the deed and science of Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, the second Antiochus. And Prince Konstantin showed himself to be a brave knight and a faithful servant of his master, along with powerful Lithuanian warriors, who, not sparing themselves, went to the great enemy force, and struck, and killed many people from the Moscow army, and killed eighty thousand, and others alive in took full.
Thus, by his faithful service to his lord, the great King Sigismund, he brought joy, and most importantly, the Christian Church of God and freed many men and women from the shame of Moscow. Here the words of the Holy Father Ephraim were confirmed: “The strong one fell ill, but the healthy one fell ill, and the joyful one wept, and the rich one lost.” As it seems to me, a sinner, now all this happened to the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily.
Let us recall the words of Isaiah, the son of Amos, who prophesied about the last days, illuminated by the holy spirit, saying this: “For the multiplication of the anger of people and their many iniquities, their blood will be shed in a mighty stream, the brave and proud will perish by swords, one just warrior will chase a hundred unjust, and a thousand will flee from a hundred, and their bodies will be devoured by wild beasts, and their bones for all living things to watch.
Now, God gave the prophecy to Prince Konstantin Ivanovich, the great Lithuanian hetman, that thanks to his leadership of the army, his bold heart and the movement of his hand, the people of the prince of Moscow were beaten, and the bodies of those killed were eaten by animals and birds, bones were dragged along the ground, and drowned in water the fish are pecking.
Oh, beautiful wise head, what should I call you and praise you? With the poverty of my tongue and the weakness of my mind, I cannot think what glory and praise I can give to his deeds: your courage is equal to the courage of the king of the Indian Por, whom many kings and princes could not resist. His deeds and glory show the shape and size of your glory. In the same way, by the grace of God and the happiness of the glorious sovereign Sigismund, king and grand duke, you fought back such a strong and powerful lord, the grand duke of Moscow, and with brave knights, famous knights, with princes, and pans, and nobles statesmen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia, together with the great and noble knights, pans-Poles, with all your kind and faithful assistants, as one assistant you showed the courage of good warriors, and calmed many castles of the sovereign and glorious cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For that you, glorious hetman, are worthy of great and high honor from your master.
You are equal to the great brave knights of the city of glorious Rhodes, who with their courage defended many Christian castles from pagan hands. By your courageous steadfastness against such a powerful master, you have earned fame and honor, by this service you brought joy to your sovereign, the great king Sigismund. For such an act, you are worthy not only to reign in these great cities of the sovereign, but also to rule in the very city of God, Jerusalem. The strength of your courage from east to west will be heard, you have done great glory not only for yourself, but also for the entire Principality of Lithuania.
You, an honest and very wise head, started a battle with the Grand Duke of Moscow and beat his people and drove him out of the city of Smolensk. And the Grand Duke Vasily fled from you to the Moscow side, to his cities, and with him he took the lord of Smolensk Barsanuphius from Smolensk to Moscow. Prince Konstantin, having been near Smolensk and returning from there, took those cities that had already served the Grand Duke of Moscow: Mstislavl, Krichev, Dubrovna, and ordered them to serve the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as before, and he himself went to his master, the great king Sigismund.
Hearing that Prince Ostrozhsky had arrived with all his Lithuanian and Russian warriors, famous knights, the king received them with great honor in his capital city of Vilna on December 3, the day of the holy prophet Safony. May there be honor and glory forever and ever to the glorious master, King Sigismund Kazimirovich, who defeated his opponent, the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily, and to his famous hetman, Prince Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky, God grant, great health and happiness, as now. He beat the great strength of Moscow, and so that he could beat the strong army of the Tatars, shedding the blood of their infidels.
