Unpublished edition of source materials on the interregnum after the death of King John III (1696-1697) by Andrzej Chryzostom Załuski, Bishop of Płock and Warmia

Abstract

This article is about probably the first initiative in Poland to publish in print—i.e. not to disseminate in manuscript form—a large collection of source materials on an important fragment of the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the interregnum, 1696–1697. The author of the discussed edition was Andrzej Chryzostom Załuski (1648–1711), Bishop of Płock and Warmia, who was active in the field of documenting the events of public life and publishing historical sources. As the edition ultimately never appeared in print, its only evidence is a fragmentary manuscript copy (available at the National Ossolineum Library in Wrocław, no. 447). Because most of Załuski's private archive, including letters, has not survived to the present day, it is not possible to establish the circumstances of the composition of the edition or the reasons for which it was not printed. However, it is possible to hypothesise that it may have been completed as early as the end of 1697 and that it may have been addressed primarily to the circles of the Roman Curia, with whom Załuski maintained lively correspondence at the time. The fragmentary nature of the extant manuscript does not make it possible to reconstruct the exact contents of the edition, but it does allow us to establish its most important editorial features and the nature of the texts it contained. They were typical materials of public life at that time, such as accounts of parliamentary sessions, letters and speeches by members of the Sobieski family and of state dignitaries, official files, journalistic writings and pasquinades. The most interesting and original feature of this edition is its source-historiographical form. Almost all the texts included in it were provided by Załuski with more or less extensive commentaries, which gives his work the character of an annotated edition of source materials. This makes it an interesting and hitherto unknown contribution to the history of literary culture in Old Poland.