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'Stefan Batory' (Hungarian: ''István Báthory'', Polish: ''Stefan Batory'') (27 September 1533–12 December 1586) was Prince of Transylvania (1571-1586), then King consort (1576-1586) to Anna Jagiellon. He was a member of the Somlyo branch of the Báthory family. Many historians consider him to be one of the greatest of the elected Kings of Poland.

Contents

Biography

Notes

References

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Biography

Stefan Batory was born in Somlyo as the son of Stephen Báthory (d. 1534). 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.
Stefan the son won renown as a valiant lord-marcher, and as a skillful diplomat at the imperial court. His advocacy for the rights of Zapolya's son John Sigismund incurred the animosity of the emperor 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 contended himself with Transylvania. After his death in 1571, the Transylvanian estates elected Stefan Batory Voivod of Transylvania - quite in contrast to the provisions of the late Prince, who had appointed Gaspar Bekesy his successor. Supported by the Habsburgs, Bekesy insisted on his claims but in a civil war Batory 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.
On December 12, 1575, after a interregnum of roughly one and a half years, the Sejm, persuaded by the Papal nuncio, elected the 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 Stefan Batory. 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 Stefan'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 and on May 1, 1576 Stefan married Anna and was crowned King of Poland, Prussia, Masovia, Kiev Land, Volhynia, Podlachia and Livonia (de facto King consort).
This coronation almost made the Union of Lublin obsolete, as the presentatives Grand Duchy of Lithuania who were not present at this election seriously considered to elect elected the Emperor Maximilian but after some negotiations and assurance of Lithuania's full federal rights within the Commonwealth, Stefan was recognized as Grand Duke of Lithuania, Duke of Ruthenia and Samogitia.^[1]. As a token of his recognition he did establish Almae Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Jesu.

Stefan Batory proved to be a wise king, despite the fact that the country he became a ruler of was badly damaged by the troubles of the interregnum.
At first his position was extremely difficult. Emperor Maximilian, insisting on his earlier election, fostered internal opposition and in league with Muscovy prepared to enforce his claim by military action. However, Maximilian's sudden death completely reversed the situation.

All armed opposition collapsed with the surrender of the Hanseatic city of Danzig (Gdańsk). The city, encouraged by its immense wealth and almost impregnable fortifications, as well as by the secret support of Denmark and Emperor Maximilian, has supported the latter's election and shut her gates against Stefan. 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 Stefan's armies were too weak to take the city by force, a compromise was reached: Stefan confirmed the city's special status and her privileges granted by earlier Polish kings. The city recognised him as ruler of Poland and paid the enormous sum of 200,000 guldens in gold as payoff ("apology"). Danzig later served the Kingdom during the war with Sweden and Muscovy, providing help when requested.

This victory gave Stefan 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 several factions of the Polish nobility, mostly
by means of better taxation of crown lands and royal property leased to the nobility. Stefan completely reorganised 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. Stefan also reorganised the judiciary by 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. Stefan also ordered the execution of Samuel Zborowski, whose death sentence for treason and murder had been pending for roughly a decade.


In external relations, Stefan sought peace through strong alliances. Though Stefan 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 Stefan subsidies for the inevitable war against Muscovy. Two campaigns of wearing marches, and still more exhausting sieges ensued, in which Batory, although repeatedly hampered by the parsimony of the Sejm, was uniformly successful, his skilful diplomacy at the same time allaying the suspicions of the Ottomans and the emperor.
Stefan, 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 Stefan penetrated to the very heart of Muscovy 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 the king, despite the murmurs of his own officers, and the protestations of the papal nuncio Possevino, whom the curia had sent to mediate between the Tsar and the king of Poland to arrange a church union, closely besieged the city throughout a winter of arctic severity, till, on the 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, Stefan planned a Christian alliance with Muscovy 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 Hrodna. (His necropsy there was the first such act in the Eastern Europe.)
His death was followed by an interregnum of one year. The Emperor's brother Archduke Maximilian, was elected King but was contested by the Swedish Sigismund III Vasa, who defeated Maximilian at the Byczyna and succeeded as ruler of the Commonwealth.

Notes

1. His official titles were ''Stephanus Dei gratia rex Poloniae et magnus dux Lithuaniae, Russiae, Prussiae, Masoviae, Samogitiae, Kiioviae, Voliniae, Podlachiae, Livoniaeque, necnon. princeps Transylvaniae.'' in Latin.

References

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See also

★ History of Poland (1569-1795)