The Role of Stanislav Zholkiewski in the Time of Troubles: Based on an Unknown Letter from the Hetman in the Collection of N.P. Likhachev

The article reveals the role of the Polish Crown Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski in the election of Prince Vladislav to the Moscow throne, the conclusion of the Treaty of August 17 (27), 1610, and the administration of the Moscow state during his stay in the Kremlin in the autumn of 1610. The article analyzes both published sources (memoirs and letters by Stanisław Żółkiewski and contemporaries of the Russo-Polish War of 1609-1618), as well as an unpublished letter from the hetman to Polish King Sigismund III dated October 8, 1610, during his stay in the Kremlin. This letter was discovered in the archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the Rossika collection assembled by Academician Nikolai Likhachev, and has been translated into Russian. The combination of all the collected sources allows us to conclude that Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski concluded an agreement with the Moscow boyars to elect Władysław exclusively on Moscow terms. The entry of Polish troops into Moscow was carefully coordinated with members of the Boyar Duma, and Żółkiewski himself did not play any role in the government.