Swedish deluge

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Poland-Lithuania was almost completely occupied by the Swedes (light blue) and Russian troops (light green) by the end of 1655.

The Swedish Flood ( Polish Potop szwedzki ) is a common Polish term for several invasions by armies of neighboring powers to which Poland-Lithuania was exposed in the second half of the 17th century. This includes in part the Russo-Polish War from 1654 to 1667, but above all the Polish-Swedish War between 1655 and 1660 , which was fought at the same time .

During this period, Poland-Lithuania experienced a large number of invasions by enemy armies. The fighting and the associated looting and devastation of large areas and cities during the wars of this 'bloody deluge' had similarly devastating consequences for Poland-Lithuania as the Thirty Years War did for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation .

In a narrower sense, Potop only refers to the invasion of the Swedes and their allies in the Polish-Swedish War from 1655 to 1660. Poles, and more rarely Lithuanians, refer to this episode in the history of their countries as the “Swedish Flood” (Polish Potop szwedzki ; lit . Švedų tvanas ).

The term became popular primarily through the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz , which is set between 1655 and 1656 and is the second part of his “Polish Trilogy”.

The 1974 film adaptation of Jerzy Hoffman (with Daniel Olbrychski in one of the leading roles) is considered one of the best Polish literary adaptations . The film received the main prize at the first Polish Film Festival in Gdansk .

literature

  • Adam Kersten: Sienkiewicz - "Potop" - historia . Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1974 (first edition 1966).
  • Hilmar Sack, Tomasz Łopatka: Thirty Years' War and Potop. Heroism and "barbaric ferocity". Existential war experiences in the 17th century . In: Hans Henning Hahn , Robert Traba (ed.): German-Polish Places of Remembrance , Vol. 3: Parallels . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-77341-8 , pp. 147-165.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Hilmar Sack, Tomasz Łopatka: Thirty Years' War and Potop . In: Hans Henning Hahn, Robert Traba (ed.): German-Polish Places of Remembrance , Vol. 3: Parallels . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, pp. 147–165, here p. 147.
  2. ↑ The historical background and the art of narrating and shaping history at Sienkiewicz has been examined and portrayed in detail by Adam Kersten ( Sienkiewicz - "Potop" - historia . Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1974).
  3. ^ Jerzy Hoffman, Jacek Szczerba: Po mnie choćby "Potop" . Agora, Warsaw 2015, ISBN 978-83-268-2269-8 (translation of the Polish title: After me "the Flood" ).