(Cambridge Concise Histories) Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki - A Concise History of Poland-Cambridge University Press (2006)

Poland survived the ‘Deluge’ - Potop - of invasions. The brutality of the over-extended Swedish and Muscovite forces provoked a major national uprising, embracing every level of society. The successful defence of the fortified shrine of the Madonna at Częstochowa in December 1655 proved a legendary turning-point. The defections to Charles X went into reverse. His seemingly remorseless progress provoked Austrian, Danish and Russian attacks on him - though the ‘help’ the Austrian troops gave the Poles was almost as ruinous as their enemies’ invasions. Polish and Tatar forces smashed a Transylvanian invasion in the summer of 1657. By the autumn, Polish troops were coming to the assistance of the hard-pressed Danes. Frederick William switched sides, but at a price: under the treaty of Wehlau of September 1657, the Commonwealth abandoned its suzerainty over Ducal Prussia -which, in 170т, was to be accorded the status of a kingdom in its own right by the emperor Leopold I. The unexpected death of Charles X in February 1660 paved the way for the end of the Northern War. The peace treaty of Oliva in May 1660 was concluded on the basis of the status quo ante bellum - and the surrender by the (childless) John Casimir of his dynastic claims on

15 The defence of the Pauline monastery of Jasna Cora against the Swedes, in November-December 1655. The engraving commemorates the miraculous intervention by the Blessed Virgin Mary to protect the monastery, which housed an icon of the Black Madonna, supposed to have been painted by St Luke the Evangelist (the icon dates from the fifteenth century). The failure of the siege marked a turning-point in the Swedish invasion, helping bring about a massive nationwide uprising, uniting all social classes against the invaders. In fact, of the comparatively small besieging force, only some 450 were Swedes. Most - around 1,000 - consisted of Polish troops who had defected in the early stages of Charles X’s invasion. This has done nothing to detract from the potency of the legend, which has helped to make the monastery the most celebrated religious site in Poland.

Sweden. After all the rivers of blood shed in the Swedish wars, he was allowed to retain the courtesy title of king of Sweden.

With the Swedish conflict settled, the struggle with Russia resumed. Khmel’nytskyi died in August 1657. His de facto successor, Ivan Vykhovskyi, himself of noble birth, judged that ‘liberty’ could have no future under the tsars’ rule. The Accord of Hadziacz which he made with Poland on 16 September 1658 would have created an autonomous principality of Rus’, with its own hierarchy of ministers and officials, the equal of the Crown and Lithuania. Orthodoxy was to have the same status as Roman Catholicism - Greek Catholicism would be allowed to wither away as no new ecclesiastical appointments would be made. The Orthodox bishops were to sit in the Senate. The new principality would have its own army of 30,000 registered Cossacks and its own regional parliament. But it came a good ten years too late. Popular venom against the Poles made it unworkable. A new Commonwealth of Three Nations was not to be. In May 1659, although the Sejm reduced the very extensive scope in the Accord for the new principality to conduct foreign affairs, it largely ratified the agreement - but to no avail. In September, a year after it was first drawn up, a Cossack assembly rejected it outright as a sell-out by a self-seeking leadership.

Although it never received any chance to come into effect, the Accord made renewed war with Russia unavoidable, by challenging its mastery of the Ukraine. Inadequate taxation and renewed domestic unrest undercut the Poles' ability to exploit a string of military successes. At the little village of Andrusovo in 1667, the exhausted protagonists concluded an armistice, to run for thirteen years. Smolensk and its hinterland remained in Russian hands. The Ukraine was partitioned: the territories east of the river Dnieper, with the addition of Kiev - which the Russians promised to restore within two years (they never did) - remained under Russian control; the ‘right bank’ Ukraine remained nominally Polish.