Stephen Bathory was a Hungarian noble Prince of Transylvania from 1571 to 1586, then King of Poland from 1576 to 1586 and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1576 to 1586. He was one of Poland's most prominent rulers and an excellent military commander.
Background
Stephen Bathory was born on the 27th of September, 1533 Simleu Silvaniei, Salaj, Romania into the Hungarian Bathory noble family. He was the son of another Istvan Bathory, the governor of Transylvania for the Habsburg king of Hungary and his wife Catherine Telegdi. His father was a partisan of John Zapolya, who claimed the crown of Hungary in opposition to the Habsburg claimant Ferdinand I, and had been appointed Voivode of Transylvania. He had at least five siblings, two brothers and three sisters.
Education
Stephen Bathory was brought up at the imperial court in Vienna, was well educated, and knew several languages. Around 1549-1550 he visited Italy and studied at Padua University.
Career
After his return from Italy, Stephen Bathory joined the army of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, and took part in his military struggle against the Turks. Around 1553, Báthory was captured by the Turks, and after Ferdinand I, refused to pay his ransom, Báthory joined the opposing side. Stephen entered the service of John Sigismund Zápolya, Prince of the newly independent Transylvania, in 1556, and eventually became army commander in chief. In 1559 Stephen Báthory was appointed commander of the Wardar fortress, took part in John Sigismund Szapolyai's struggles against the Habsburgs, participated in peace negotiations with the emperor in Vienna, and was interned there for several years. As prince of Transylvania he had to acknowledge his subordination to both Turkey and the emperor, he organized a mercenary army, reformed education, and upheld the principles of religious tolerance.
Stephen Bathory became known as a skillful diplomat. His advocacy for the rights of Zapolya's son John Sigismund incurred the animosity of Emperor Maximilian II, who kept him in prison for two years. The Habsburgs and Zapolya courts finally reached an agreement in 1570 and John Sigismund contented himself with Transylvania. After his death in 1571, the Transylvanian estates elected Stephen Báthory Voivod of Transylvania against the provisions of the late Prince, who had appointed Gáspár Bekes his successor. Supported by the Habsburgs, Bekesy insisted on his claims but in a civil war, Bathory ultimately drove his rival out of the country.
In 1572, the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the time the largest and one of the most populous states in Europe, was vacated when King Sigismund II of Poland died without heirs. In April 1573, his sister Anna, the sole heir to the crown, convinced the Sejm to elect the French prince Henry of Valois as ruler. A marriage with Henry was to further legitimize Henry's rule but less than a year after his coronation, Henry fled Poland to succeed his brother as King of France. After Henry of Valois's flight from Poland in 1574, Bathory submitted his candidacy for the Polish throne and expressed his intention to marry Princess Anna Jagiellonka.
On December 12, 1575, after an interregnum of roughly one and a half years, the Sejm, persuaded by the Papal nuncio, elected Emperor Maximilian as the new monarch. However, after three days the nobility threatened the senate with civil war and demanded a Piast king, a Polish King. After a heated discussion, it was decided that Anna should be elected King of Poland and marry Stephen Báthory (Stephen being the son-in-law of the late Sigismund I). Representatives of Lithuania left the Sejm and did not participate in this election. Among the strongest supporters of his candidacy were the Protestants and Socinians, who feared a Habsburg ruler could introduce Counter-Reformation in Poland, whereas Stephen's Transylvania was known for freedom of religion.
On December 13, 1575, Anna Jagiellon was elected in Warsaw King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Having secured the Transylvanian succession for his brother Christopher, Stephen hurried to Kraków and was crowned on May 1, 1576. This coronation almost made the Union of Lublin obsolete, as the representatives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who were not present at this election seriously considered to elect Emperor Maximilian. After some negotiations and assurance of Lithuania's full federal rights within the Commonwealth, Stephen Báthory was recognized as Grand Duke of Lithuania, Duke of Ruthenia and Samogitia. As a token of his recognition, he established Alma Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Jesu.
The former followers of the Habsburg candidate gradually came over to his side. Bathory launched a campaign against Gdańsk, which had supported the emperor, and after a lengthy blockade and siege, a compromise agreement was reached (12 December 1577, in which Gdansk recognized Bathory's election, agreed to pay a high contribution to the royal coffers and preserved its extensive autonomy.
Stephen Báthory's position was at first extremely difficult. The country was badly damaged by the troubles of the interregnum. Emperor Maximilian, insisting on his earlier election, fostered internal opposition and in league with Tsardom of Russia prepared to enforce his claim by military action. However, Maximilian's sudden death completely reversed the situation.
All armed opposition collapsed when the prolonged Siege of Danzig in 1577 by Batory's forces was lifted as an agreement was reached. The Hanseatic League city, bolstered by its immense wealth, fortifications, and the secret support of Denmark and Emperor Maximilian, had supported the latter's election and decided not to recognize Stephen. After a siege of six months, the Danzig army of 5,000 mercenaries was utterly defeated in a field battle on December 16, 1577. However, since Stephen's armies were unable to take the city by force, a compromise was reached: Stephen Báthory confirmed the city's special status and her Danzig Law privileges granted by earlier Polish kings. The city recognized him as ruler of Poland and paid the enormous sum of 200,000 guldens in gold as payoff ("apology"). Danzig later remained loyal to the Kingdom during wars with Sweden and Tsardom of Russia, providing help when requested.
This victory gave Stephen a chance to devote himself to strengthening royal authority, in which he was supported by his chancellor Jan Zamoyski, who was just as skilled a politician. The two managed to win over several factions of the Lithuanian and Polish nobility, mostly by means of better taxation of crown lands and royal property leased to the nobility. Stephen completely reorganized the Polish Army. Among his genuine inventions was the Piechota wybraniecka semi-professional infantry formation, composed of peasants trained in both infantry warfare and engineering. Stephen also reorganized the judiciary by the formation of legal tribunals. He also founded the Academy of Vilna, the third university in the Commonwealth and a predecessor of the modern Vilnius University. Stephen also ordered the execution of Samuel Zborowski, whose death sentence for treason and murder had been pending for roughly a decade.
In external relations, Stephen sought peace through strong alliances. Though Stephen remained distrustful of the Habsburgs, he entered into a defensive alliance with Maximilian's successor, Rudolf II, fostered by the papal nuncio. The difficulties with the Ottoman Empire were temporarily adjusted by a truce signed on November 5, 1577. The Sejm gathered in Warsaw was persuaded to grant Stephen subsidies for the inevitable war against Muscovy. Two campaigns in which Báthory, although hampered by the Sejm, were successful. Bathory's diplomatic skills in the meantime ensured that there was no conflict with the Ottomans, nor with the emperor.
Stephen, together with his chancellor Zamoyski, led the army of the Commonwealth in a brilliant decisive campaign during the Livonian War, which formed part of the Muscovite wars between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy. Ivan the Terrible had invaded Livonia and took Dorpat, Duchy of Courland, which a few years earlier had become a vassal of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth army routed the Russian force at Velikiye Luki. In 1581 Stephen penetrated to the very heart of Russia and, on August 22, laid siege to the city of Pskov, whose vast size and imposing fortifications filled the little Commonwealth army with dismay. But Báthory, despite the objections of some of his officers, and critique from the papal nuncio Possevino, send by the curia to mediate between the Muscovites and the Commonwealth, decided to keep up the siege. Finally, on December 13, 1581, Ivan the Terrible, alarmed for the safety of the third city in his empire, concluded the Peace of Jam Zapolski (January 15, 1582), thereby ceding Polatsk and the whole of Livonia back to the Commonwealth.
With the eastern borders secure, Stephen planned a Christian alliance with Tsardom of Russia against the Ottoman Empire. However, Russia's lapse into the Time of Troubles left him without a Russian partner, while the proposal of a personal union with Muscovy was rendered moot by his own sudden death, on December 12, 1586, in the Old Grodno Castle.
Stephen Bathory was considered one of the most forceful and ambitious monarchs in the history of Poland. He was a brilliant soldier, successfully opposed the Habsburg candidate for the Polish throne, defended Poland’s eastern Baltic provinces against Russian incursion, and attempted to form a great state from Poland, Muscovy, and Transylvania. The most spectacular achievement of Báthory’s reign was a series of military victories in 1579–81 over Ivan the Terrible of Russia.
Stephen was a patron of science and culture. In 1579, he founded the Vilnius Academy (today’s Vilnius University, the third university in the Commonwealth, transforming a prior Jesuit college into a major university. He founded several other Jesuit colleges, including the Jesuit College in Grodno, reconstructed the Old Castle in Grodno and made it new royal residence. Bathory carried out military and judicial reforms. Many of his projects aimed to modernize the Commonwealth army, reforming it in a model of Hungarian troops of Transylvania.
According to contemporary panegyrics Stephen Bathory's deeds surpassed previous monarchs and can be compared only to Vytautas the Great.
Stephen Bathory became a recurring character in Polish poetry and literature and featured as a central figure in poems, novels and drama by Jakub Jasinski, Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Henryk Rzewuski, and others. He has been a subject of numerous paintings, both during his life and posthumously. Among the painters who took him as a subject were Jan Matejko and Stanisław Wyspiański.
A statue of Bathory by Giovanni Ferrari was raised in 1789 in Padua, Italy, sponsored by the last king of the Commonwealth, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Other monuments to him include one in the Lazienki Palace (1795 by Andrzej Le Brun) and one in Sniatyn (1904, destroyed in 1939).
Stephen Bathory's name was borne by two 20th-century passenger ships of the Polish Merchant Navy, the MS Batory and TSS Stefan Batory. In modern Poland, he is the namesake of the Batory Steelmill, a nongovernmental Stefan Batory Foundation, the Polish 9th Armored Cavalry Brigade, and numerous Polish streets and schools. One of the districts of the town of Chorzow is named after him.
Religion
Stephen was active in propagating Catholicism, while at the same time being respectful of the Commonwealth policy of religious tolerance, issuing a number of decrees offering protection to Polish Jews, and denouncing any religious violence.Though personally tolerant of differing religious views, Stephen encountered considerable resistance from his subjects in his attempts to promote the Counter-Reformation and to strengthen his royal power.
Politics
Stephen's goal was to unite Poland, Muscovy, and Transylvania under his rule. He therefore prepared to renew his war against Russia and was planning to launch a crusade against the Ottoman Empire when he died.
Personality
In his personal life, Stephen was described as rather frugal in his personal expenditures. Bathory actively promoted his own legend, sponsoring a number of works about his life and achievements, from historical treatises to poetry. In addition to Hungarian, he was well versed in Latin, and spoke Italian and German, he never learned the Polish language.
Interests
hunting, reading
Connections
Stephen was married to Anna Jagiellon. He had no legitimate children, though contemporary rumours suggested he might have had several illegitimate children. None of these rumours have been confirmed by modern historians.
In 1521, Stephen VIII Bathory was appointed adjoint of the Voivode of Transylvania, serving under the Voivode John Zápolya. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Stephen supported Zápolya's claim to the Kingship of Hungary and in 1529 was made Voivode of Transylvania himself.
Mother:
Catherine Telegdi
She was a was a Hungarian noble lady.
Wife:
Anna Jagiellon
Anna Jagiellon was a daughter of Polish King Sigismund I the Old and his Italian wife Bona Sforza. She was the Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania in her own right from 1575 to 1586.
Lew Sapieha started his career during the reign of the glorious King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stefan Bathory. Sapieha was participating in request of his father and was forced to present it to the King Bathory. Since Bathory was not fluent neither in Polish nor in Old Belarusian, Sapieha talked to him in Latin. This made Bathory to notice a young man and Sapieha received a position of the Secretary of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
References
Bathory Istvan Lengyel Kiralylya Valasztasa, 1574-1576
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