Catch Some Z’s

Seriously. These Polish names use so many Z’s. Or so many zeds, if you’re in Canadaland.

I can’t even spell this one without looking, and I sure as heck am not going to attempt to pronounce it. Or maybe I will.
Krzysztof Grzymultowski. Ok, despite the, um, whoa, SEVEN consonants in a row, Krzysztof isn’t really so bad .. I think it’s pronounced Krishtoff, more or less. The last name though … I thinkthe rz sounds kind of like sh, or at least it does in Skrzetuski, so if I had to guess I would say it’s something like Gshymultovski. Or thereabouts.

Let’s just call him KG. He was elected to the sejm (parliament) in 1649. He was one of the diplomats who signed a peace treaty with Sweden in 1652 … that same treaty that the Swedes violated 3 years later during the Deluge. In 1656 he was named voivod (warlord) of Poznań. Later on, beyond the years which I have really studied so far, he signed the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686, sometimes referred to as Grzymultowski’s Treaty. This was between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. It confirmed Russian ownership of left-bank Ukraine and Kiev, and prohibited any treaty with the Ottoman Empire.

Speaking of Pan Jan Skrzetuski, I have gotten a better shot of him.

Huh, amazing, I managed to get Kmicic in the shot with him again. Skrzetuski, as I have probably mentioned before, is the main hero of Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword. He also appears in the other two books of the trilogy, The Deluge and Pan Michael, but only as a side character. Of course, (SPOILER) he and Halshka are married at the end of With Fire and Sword, and by the time of Pan Michael, they have so many kids that Jan can almost make up his own regiment with them.

Jan Onufry Zagloba is also from the books.

He is quite a character; balding, fat, half-blind and overly fond of drink. He is jovial and pokes fun at everything and everyone, and loves to embellish his own exploits and take credit for others’ heroic deeds. Yet, despite appearances, he is actually quite cunning and does manage many outstanding things all on his own.

That’s all I’m going to tell you though. If you want to know more about him, or any of this, you should read the books. They are really very good.

I Will Never Misspell Andrzej Again

Ok, I know you have all been on the edge of your seats ALL WEEK for another post full of Poles. But how about some Lithuanians today? I mean, they are part of the Commonwealth, too, you know!

Prince Boguslav Nesvizhsky

I have no idea what he is prince of. He seems to only exist in the game. I thought maybe he was supposed be Prince Boguslav Radzivill of Lithuania, Janusz’ cousin. I mean, it’s kind of strange to just have a made-up prince surrounded by all of this reality, isn’t it? Then again, he definitely does NOT look anything like Bo Radziwill so … I must be wrong.

Hetman Pavel Sapega

According to the M&B wiki, he is based on Pawel Jan Sapieha. He was Great Hetman of Lithuania after Janusz Radziwill. Oh look, Kiszka was before Radziwill. Too bad I don’t have a shot of him yet, he would have fit into this post very well.

As long as we’re in Lithuania, though, we have to talk about Andrzej Kmicic.

No, he’s not real. But he IS the hero of the second book in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s trilogy, The Deluge (Potop in Polish). I was going to say he’s the Jan Skrzetuski of the second book but, well … first of all, Jan is IN the book, and second of all … his character is not at all like Jan. Well, that’s not quite true, either. He does have Jan’s knightly characteristics, but he also has Bogun’s .. he’s like Jan and Bogun all rolled into one. So he’s got this pure, honorable side … but he’s also got a side that is completely roguish, with a hot temper to go with it. Not to say that Bogun was a complete rogue, because he had his own honorable thoughts and deeds. But you get the idea.

So anyway, in a nutshell, Kmicic is on the side of Radziwill at first when he allies Lithuania with Sweden, because Janusz convinces him that he is doing what is best for the Commonwealth. Kmicic eventually realizes that this is untrue, and he must find a way to both help Poland and restore his name and honor.

I’m only halfway through the book though so don’t tell me what happens! :p

More Poles

Yeah, I still haven’t had any luck getting shots of the rest of the Cossacks. But I spent some time on my Polish subject yesterday and he got to participate in a huge battle between a large number of Poles and one of the Swedish armies that spawn as part of The Deluge questline. So I got enough shots for a couple of days’ worth of posts.

The first shot I got is Jerzy Halecki, who is one of my favorites.

It was very foggy, so that’s why everything is a bit yellow.

Like Gritsenko, Halecki seems to be one that was just made up for the game.

Next we have Fyodor Obukhovich.

He’s probably the first lord you actually meet in the game if you follow Clermont’s advice and do the quests that the town elder gives you in Zamoshye. He also only exists within the game.

That is Jan Skrzetuski behind him, but from the other side his face was all bloody and I didn’t like the shot I got of him, so I’m going to try to get a better one because he is important.

I suppose this next guy is important too though. I mean, he *is* the King; Jan II Kazimierz Waza:

He was elected in 1648, during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. Yes, I said elected. Did you know that the Polish Commonwealth had elected kings rather than an absolute monarchy? I thought that was pretty interesting. The king’s power was held in check by a parliament (the Sejm) and a senate. His brother Wladyslaw was king before him, so being an elected position doesn’t necessarily mean that it strays far from ‘royal’ bloodlines. But it can. His family had also held the Swedish throne until his father was deposed by his father’s uncle in 1599, leading to a long feud and many wars between Sweden and Poland, including this Deluge in 1655.

Rebellion

So, each of the three big factions in the game has their own special questline. I didn’t do the Cossack Hetmanate one, The Secret of the Black Mace, on my main character because, well, it requires starting a rebellion within the Commonwealth at one point and I had already sworn my oath to Hmelnitski. I wasn’t willing to ask him to release me from his service. BUT … I have that other character Ani, my ‘let’s play as a woman’ project. She had started the questline as well, and despite gaining much favour with the Cossacks they had not allowed her to join them. So since she was still neutral I decided to work on it with her. She had to go find Janusz Radziwill, the Grand Hetman of Lithuania, and help him overthrow King Jan Kasimir.

So, the first quest he gives me is to capture a city or fortress, so that we have a capital to work out of. Obviously, I cannot accomplish this alone. So I go talk to various Poles, hoping they like me or Janusz enough to join us. Those that agree who hold fiefs, well, those holdings automatically switch sides to Polish Commonwealth (rebels). Those who don’t, we have to fight (if I approached them in the field to ask them). And yes, Janusz does fight by my side.

I was able to gain Berestye Fortress and Lida Castle this way when Jerzy Halecki and Jan Sobieski agreed to aid us. Jan Zamojski also came along for the ride, but he had no holdings. Ok, so, those castles don’t count since they already have lords. We still need to capture one. We rode around to the Pole-owned fortresses, asking for more joiners and looking for one that had a low enough number of defenders that we could take it. The only one that had low defense at the moment was Myadzelsk Castle, owned by Andrejz (Andrezj? Andrzej. Silly Polish spellings. Can we just settle on calling him Andrei?) Kmicic. I didn’t really want to take his castle without first asking Pan Andrei to join us, but he wasn’t home and I didn’t know where to find him. So after a couple of circles around all of the other options, I just took it.

Once Janusz was settled in, he sent us to capture Kiev, which turns into a Polish town automatically at that point in the questline. I was a bit upset about that, I mean, they put Anton out of his city just like that with no warning or battle or anything! So we rode over and found that the city defenses were about equal to our numbers. Hm, doable but it wasn’t going to be easy. So we set about besieging it and after the first battle, as we were laying explosives for the second assault, Oginsky went to Myadzelsk. Oh. Yeah. We probably should defend that eh? But we’ve almost got this … I made the fateful decision to stick with my siege. It didn’t succeed, but Oginsky sure did. With the defeat of Radziwill, the rebellion was ended in its infancy. Jerzy, Jan, and Jan went back to serving King Jan and I was left neutral. Lesson learned, defend your new fief first! And maybe try to take something closer to Kiev as your capital so that you are nearby if needed.

Alone and in despair, I rode up to Lavrin Sinonos to vent my frustration. He offered me a mercenary contract with the Cossacks (finally). So that attempt ended in failure and that character is now just another Cossack. I made a new character to have another attempt at the questline. I also helped my new Cossack brothers take back Kiev, which was then given back to Anton, thank God. I would have really felt awful if I had inadvertently caused him to permanently lose his city.

Oh, a funny thing happened before all of this. I happened to be visiting Kiev on business and noticed that Jan Skrzetuski was being held in the prison there. So I took a walk around to see if the guards would let me in to talk to him. They did, so I wandered around and then chatted with him a bit. One of the options that always comes up when talking to another lord is “What are you and your men doing here?” So I figured I had to see what he would say.

Easy there, Jan! Geez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the cell this morning, eh? hehe