Twenty-five years ago, in July 1997, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands visited Poland. It was the first official state visit to the Rzeczpospolita by Dutch royalty. Together with her husband, Prince Claus, Queen Beatrix spent three days in Poland, journeying to Warsaw, Wrocław, and Gdańsk. In Poland’s capital, the royal pair was welcomed at the Presidential Palace by president Aleksander Kwaśniewski. That day, the Queen admired Warsaw’s city centre and the Royal Castle, and she paid her respects at three war memorials: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Warsaw Uprising Monument, and the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes. Wrocław also provided several interesting sights, including the Town Hall, the university, and the Racławice Panorama: a monumental cycloramic painting showing the Battle of Racławice, one of the first battles of the Polish Kościuszko Uprising against Russia in 1794. In Gdańsk, finally, Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus made a tour of the old city, visited a number of museums, and met with the former Polish president Lech Wałęsa. Apparently, the Queen felt right at home in Gdańsk, as she knew much about the city’s close historic ties with the Netherlands.

Seventeen years later, in June 2014, Beatrix’s son King Willem-Alexander and his wife, Queen Máxima, made Poland the destination of their first state visit as the new Dutch royal couple.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 35.

In the 1650s, a play set in Poland won the hearts of Dutch audiences: Sigismundus, Prinçe van Poolen (Sigismundus, Prince of Poland), also known as ’t Leven is een droom (Life is a dream). The piece is a translation of La vida es sueño from 1635, by the famed Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The Dutch version premiered in Amsterdam in 1654. Sigismundus attracted large crowds until well into the eighteenth century and was also performed by travelling theatre companies, both in Holland and abroad. All in all, Sigismundus became one of the best-loved plays of the early modern United Provinces. But what is it about, and why was it so popular?

The plot can be summarized as follows. The Polish king Basilius keeps his son Sigismundus locked in a tower, as he believes in a prophecy which states that his son will bring the country to ruin. One day, Sigismundus is set free and claims his father’s throne, but his behaviour is so beastly that he is once again imprisoned. He is released by Polish rebels, however, who prefer him to his rival, a Muscovite prince. Bloodshed follows, but when Sigismundus realizes the cruelty of his actions, he offers his father his services. Impressed, Basilius surrenders the crown to Sigismundus.

Spanish drama was vastly popular in Dutch theatres at the time. One of the reasons why Sigismundus in particular took off, however, may lie in the fact that during the 1650s, Poland was making headlines. Ever since 1648, the Polish gentry had been at war with the Cossacks, who were joined by Russian forces in 1654. That same year, Sigismundus made its premiere in Amsterdam. The play tells a fictional tale, but the fact that parts of its plot – such as the Muscovite threat – showed similarities with the time’s events, undoubtedly aided its popularity.

The image shows the frontispiece of the 1647 translation from Brussels. The play is still performed today. For example, the Dutch theatre company Toneelschuur staged an adaptation in 2017.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 34.

Many Dutchmen and -women strongly support the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian aggression. A comparable situation occurred over two hundred years ago, in 1794, when the young Dutch poet David Jacob van Lennep spoke out in support of the Poles, who fought for freedom and independence. The Polish general Tadeusz Kościuszko at that time led an armed uprising to defend his country’s territorial integrity and autonomy, a year after the Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. The image shows Kościuszko’s Proclamation, a painting by Franciszek Smuglewicz depicting a speech Kościuszko gave in Cracow in March 1794, which is considered the beginning of the uprising.

Van Lennep responded to the uprising with two long poems. One celebrates an important Polish victory in September 1794, when the Siege of Warsaw by Russian and Prussian forces was lifted. The other composition carries the title “Lyre Song to the Poles”, and is dated May 1794. Van Lennep rejoices in the Polish uprising and slanders the Russian and Prussian oppressors. He enthusiastically describes how the Poles defend their freedom, which is threatened by the “tigress of the north” – Catherine II of Russia, known as the Great – and the “treacherous” Prussians, who lay waste to Polish lands and murder and enslave the population. “Legitimizing violence with the appearance of justice / Strengthens tyrants’ crowns, / And accusing innocent people of terrible deeds / Solidifies the foundations of their thrones,” Van Lennep wrote – words which would be just as appropriate today.

Furthermore, Van Lennep compares the Polish uprising with the Dutch fight against Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He heralds “the crowds of Polish heroes” as the bringers of freedom for all oppressed peoples and foreshadows that the aggressors will flee, thus “trampling Russia’s honor in the dust”. Lastly, Van Lennep expresses the certainty that Poland will once again prosper, and he asks God for universal peace and freedom.

Kościuszko’s uprising sadly did not end well for the Poles, who were eventually defeated by Russian and Prussian forces. The following year, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was conclusively partitioned out of existence by Russia, Prussia, and Habsburg Austria. Van Lennep, meanwhile, went on to become professor of Latin and Greek in Amsterdam, as well as a respected poet. Years later, he wrote that he never regretted supporting the Poles, who had been “treated with terrible injustice, which filled me with indignation”.

Just as Van Lennep did in 1794, we must continue to speak out against Russian aggression.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 33.

Dutch cartographers and publishers played vital parts in the production and dissemination of the earliest maps of Ukraine. In 1648, the Dutch printer Willem Hondius, who worked in Gdańsk, published the so-called “general map” of Ukraine. This map was designed by the Frenchman Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan, who worked for the Polish court. At that time, it was the most detailed map of Ukrainian lands ever produced, showing 1293 distinct objects, such as settlements, rivers, forests and marshes across various Ukrainian territories both inside and outside the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While Le Vasseur de Beauplan visited many of these regions himself, not all of the elements on the map were based on first-hand observation. Still, the map corrected several false notions about Ukraine, for example concerning its span, or the flow of the Dniepr river.

Moreover, Le Vasseur de Beauplan produced a so-called “special map” of Ukraine, which was once again published by Willem Hondius in Gdańsk. This map is even more detailed than the “general” one. It was commissioned by the Polish king Władysław IV Waza in 1645, who planned to use the map during a war he meant to wage against the Turks. However, as these plans did not come to fruition and Władysław himself died in 1648, the “special” map wasn’t printed until 1650.

Both maps were reproduced multiple times by seventeenth-century Dutch printers, such as Joan Blaeu and Joannes Janssonius, who used them in the atlases they published in Amsterdam. According to cartography experts, the maps of Le Vasseur de Beauplan and Hondius thus revolutionized the image of South-Eastern Europe, contributed to the propagation of the name “Ukraine”, corrected numerous older errors, and added significantly to knowledge about both Ukrainian territories and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a whole.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 32.

Last Wednesday was King’s Day in the Netherlands, which celebrates the birthday of His Majesty King Willem-Alexander. Interestingly, the king chose Poland as the destination for his first ever state visit, where he travelled together with his wife, Her Majesty Queen Máxima. The visit took place on 24 and 25 June 2014. The royal couple was kindly received at the presidential palace in Warsaw by president Bronisław Komorowski and his wife, Anna Komorowska. Amongst other things, the king and queen paid their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, visited the Warsaw Rising Museum, and met with Polish veterans at the monument of the 1^st Armoured Division of general Stanisław Maczek, which played a vital role in the liberation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. King Willem-Alexander personally thanked Marian Słowiński, at that time the oldest surviving liberator of Breda. On the second day of their visit, the king and queen travelled to Poznań, where they had meetings concerning transport, agriculture, and other industries.

In a speech held during a banquet in Warsaw, the king expressed his admiration for Poland’s historical struggle for freedom and independence, and called Poland an important partner in many respects. Together with president Komorowski, he toasted to the close cooperation between Poland and the Netherlands.

The photograph shows King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima, president Bronisław Komorowski, his wife Anna Komorowska, and Marian Słowiński at the meeting with Polish veterans (source: ANP).

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 31.

Dutch interest in Ukraine is not something new. As early as the seventeenth century, Dutch media reported on political developments in lands that were already known as Ukrainian territories. At that time, the lands which currently lie within Ukraine’s borders were a bone of contention for Poles, Russians, Cossacks, and Tatars. Dutch poets also wrote about these struggles, especially if they were important to the Dutch economy.

In 1649, for example, the renowned poet Joost van den Vondel commented on Tatar raids in Ukrainian territories, which “laid Poland in ashes” and “threatened us here with famine”: a clear reference to the grain trade between Poland and the Dutch Republic. Vondel obviously knew that large amounts of grain were produced in Ukraine, which at the time formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the south, the grain was then transported to Gdańsk, where it was bought in bulks by Dutch merchants.

A few years later, in 1657, the anonymous author of a Dutch pamphlet reacted to the many wars which crippled the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: it was fighting the Cossacks, Tatars, Russians, and Swedes all at once – and was facing heavy losses. According to the author, the proud Polish nobles themselves were to blame:

Ukraine is the beginning of the game,
The Polish nobility, proud and fierce
Is the cause of these disasters;
Who knows how the game will end,
Pride comes before a fall,
Everyone comes to fight here.

These verses obviously refer to the 1648 Cossack Uprising, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who according to the poem aimed to lift “the proud Polish nobility from its saddle”. Later on, the focus shifts to the Swedish invasion of Poland, and the Dutch author argues in favor of sending aid to Gdańsk in order to protect the grain trade.

One final example dates from 1671. The poet Joannes Antonides van der Goes once again linked the ongoing fighting in Ukrainian territories with threats to the Dutch grain trade. Poland could feed the whole world, he wrote, if the country were not involved in wars with the Tatars, Turks, and Cossacks, led this time by hetman Petro Doroszenko. Echoing the earlier poem, Van der Goes stated that the Cossacks threatened to “lift the Polish nobility from its saddle”.

These examples make clear that Dutch readers and writers had a keen interest in political developments in Ukraine, which was essential to the Dutch economy due to the grain it produced. To this day, Ukraine is one of the largest grain exporters in the world.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 30.

Let us tell you a story which testifies to the old bonds between the Netherlands and the lands of Ukraine. A few weeks ago, we already wrote about the seventeenth-century Volhynian nobleman Samuel Korecki, who journeyed to the Netherlands and studied in Leiden. This time, we follow a Dutch student who travelled in the opposite direction.

In the 1590s, a young man named Joris van der Does/Georgius Dousa (1574-1599) rode from Leiden across Europe to Constantinople, where he hoped to study ancient Greek manuscripts and inscriptions. In 1599, a Latin book about his travels was published in Leiden. We wrote about Joris’s favourable descriptions of the Polish cities of Cracow and Zamość a few months ago. However, Joris also passed through lands which currently lie in western Ukraine. What did he see and who did he meet?

Leaving Cracow in September 1596, Joris travelled south-east via Jarosław, before passing the current Polish-Ukrainian border. The first town in modern Ukraine along his route was Yavoriv, where he met a friend of his father’s, the Polish politician Jan Szczęsny Herburt (1567-1616). Joris then travelled onwards to nearby Lviv, one of modern-day Ukraine’s largest and most resplendent cities. He observed that Lviv was a commercial centre of Cretan wine and Turkish merchandise, as well as the home of four religious groups: Greek Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Armenian Christians, and Jews. While in Lviv, Joris was received most amicably by the well-known poet Szymon Szymonowicz (1558-1629), whose Latin works the young Dutchman greatly admired. Szymonowicz was also a friend of Joris’s father, and his poems were published in Leiden in 1619.

Finally, Joris left Lviv and travelled on to Kamianets-Podilskyi, a city and castle near the current Ukrainian-Moldavian border. On his way there, Joris saw many people with their hair in a so-called kołtun or plica polonica: a kind of thick, clotted braid, which at that time was considered a disease, commonly associated with Poles. Kamianets-Podilskyi itself was described by Joris as surrounded by a huge cliff, which looked like “walls made by the hands of Cyclopes”. Tying in with literary commonplaces about Poland, however, Joris concluded that the Poles who owned the castle were not keen on walls and fortifications, but rather preferred to defend their territory with “cavalry, arms, and a powerful spirit”.

The courageous people of modern Ukraine certainly have a powerful spirit as well. The fascinating history of their country deserves to be better known, especially at a time when that history is itself contested and the people and cultural heritage of Ukraine are under attack.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 29.

History plays a crucial role in the Ukrainian-Russian War, as President Putin continues to spread misinformation and a twisted version of Ukraine’s past to legitimise his invasion as an attempt to “reunite” Ukraine with Russia. Let us consider a bit of Ukrainian history, therefore, relating to the Netherlands, from a time when modern-day Ukraine was not part of Russia.

In July 1606, a young student called Samuel Korecki inscribed his name into the album amicorum (“book of friends”) of the Dutch scholar and mayor of Harderwijk, Ernst Brinck. Korecki’s name features amongst numerous well-known men of the time, such as Galileo Galilei. But who was he?

Samuel Korecki was a duke from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose family owned Korets Castle and vast estates in Volhynia. This region, currently in western Ukraine, had for a long time belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but during the sixteenth century was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland. Samuel Korecki was born there ca. 1586/88 and made a military career in service of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Polish-Russian War of 1609-1618, he aided the Polish forces which occupied the Kremlin. He fought the Tatars and Moldavians on multiple occasions, and famously escaped Ottoman imprisonment. Returning home via Italy, he once again faced the Commonwealth’s southern enemies at the Battle of Cecora in 1620. Korecki was taken captive once more, and was eventually strangled by the Ottomans in Istanbul, in 1622.

So how did his name find its way into Ernst Brinck’s album amicorum? Before his military career, Samuel Korecki studied in the Northern Netherlands. He enrolled as an arts student at Leiden University on 29 May 1604, together with his younger brother Karol. This was not uncommon: since the founding of Leiden University in 1575, hundreds if not thousands of nobles from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth studied in Leiden. Apparently, Samuel met Ernst Brinck and decided to inscribe his name into his “book of friends”.

When Samuel finished his studies, Dominicus Baudius, one of the university professors, wrote a Latin poem in his honour, which was published in Leiden in 1607. Baudius ended his eulogy by saying that “Themis [the ancient Greek goddess of justice] will lift your name above the high stars of the sky,” implying that his Volhynian friend deserved eternal praise.

The case of Samuel Korecki illustrates that Ukrainian history is not Russian history, and Dutch-Ukrainian relations go way back.

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 28.