Stefan Czarniecki - Legacy

Legacy

Czarniecki received a state funeral in Warsaw, and has been interred in the tomb chapel of the church founded by him in Czarnca. He left his estates to a nephew, Stefan Stanisław Czarniecki, but the Czarniecki name did not last long, and the wealth he gathered became instead the foundation of the Branicki family of magnates.

Czarniecki is remembered as one of the most able Polish commanders of all times. Podhorecki called him the greatest Polish military expert in "hit-and-run tactics", and notes that he was the longest-serving of the major Polish military commanders of his era, that he participated in 27 large battles, commanding 17 of them. He is seen as instrumental in defeating the Swedes during the Deluge, although he was even more successful in his battles against the Russians. His career, raising from a simple noble family to the rank of a hetman and a wealthy magnate, was unprecedented in the Commonwealth's history.

His legend begun growing even during his lifetime, as he became a hero of poems and songs. Few negative rumors about him, popular in the last few years of his life, survived after his death. During the period of Enlightenment in Poland he was written about by poets and writers such as Stanisław Potocki, Franciszek Karpiński, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and Franciszek Ksawery Dmowski. A biography by Michał Krajewski cemented his legend of a hero rescuing Poland from anarchy and invasion. That legend that became even stronger during the times of the partitions of Poland in the 19th century, where the artists of the Polish romanticism period used him as a symbol of patriotism, and a reminder of military successes. He appears in the poem Przedświt of Zygmunt Krasiński, but much more significant was his portrayal in The Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz, particularly the second book, The Deluge.

It was during that time that his pursuit of the retreating Swedes to Pomerania and Denmark (1658–1659), particularly his crossing with his entire army to the Danish isle of Alsen, was commemorated in the song of the Polish Napoleonic Legions that would eventually become the Polish national anthem, the "Dąbrowski's Mazurka", with the words commemorating his marine excursion to the island of Als: It was only during the time of the Second Polish Republic when more modern, serious historical work begun analyzing his history that a less hagiographic account begun emerging; Władysław Czapliński wrote that Czarniecki was "first and foremost a soldier", and noted his faults such as brutality and greed. Modern historiography of Czarniecki includes works of Czapliński, Stanisław Herbst, Adam Kersten and Zdzisław Spieralski; however Podhorecki notes that while he has been a major figure in the Polish history, and is discussed extensively in Polish historiography, he has never been a subject of much interest to foreign historians, concluding that he was a major persona in Polish, but not European, history.