In 1778, that is five years before the official celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna, Nathaniel William Wraxall, an English traveller noted, surprised, that Poles are critical towards the battle, won by Jan III. Even though the military success and the glory that it bestowed upon the victors was not questioned, the assessment of long-term effects of the help offered to the Habsburg empire was less favourable. Wraxall quotes an opinion probably shared by a significant number of Poles: “Sobieski unwisely accelerated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by defeating the Turks in Hungary. By helping the Emperor, he laid the groundwork on which the Austrian power would be built up. The rulers of Austria were far more dangerous to us. [...] And this is why we think that our current situation can be attributed to some extent to Jan Sobieski”.
Especially in the face of the first partition, the aid Sobieski provided Austria may have seemed to be a misguided decision. The voices of criticism, concerning both the political actions of the king, as well as the battle itself were heard during the entire reign of Stanisław August. It is significant that people who actively participated in the preparations for the celebration in 1783 by writing speeches or songs honouring the great victor, in other statements openly criticised the king. A good example of this trend was Franciszek Salezy Jezierski, who in 1783 in Lublin delivered a speech, praising the king, but on another occasion he said that “the man had all the characteristics of a good leader, but never had quite enough to be praised as a competent king”. Jezierski accused Sobieski of “being gullible and oblivious to the tricks of foreign governments and opposition at home”, of “establishing a border treaty with a country named after its capital, with loss of land and their first city,” “always fails to apply thought and caution”. His overall assessment of Sobieski’s reign was not favourable either: “He died in glory, supported rather on splendorous great deeds, than on the deeds beneficial for the nation”. A similar opinion was voiced by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, who wrote a song of praise for the celebration of 1783. In his speech, delivered during the Sejm on 16th of September 1790 he said: “He did a lot for the glory of the Polish Army, but not for the benefit of the country itself. He was buried as a famous man, but he was neither loved, nor mourned”.
The aforementioned examples prompt to ask some questions: why did the royal court and other political forces decided to celebrate the anniversary of the event, the assessment of which was still ambiguous? Why, despite the circumstances discussed above, the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the battle became, as Kamilla Mrozowska aptly summed up, the first great national holiday in the history of the Commonwealth? And finally, why did Stanisław August choose Sobieski as the protagonist in his historical policy, in spite of all the differences between those two rulers? Why would he attempt to raise the figure of Sobieski on a pedestal and stand there beside him, if several years ago he (or someone whom he ordered to do so, perhaps Adam Naruszewicz?) wrote in Suum cuique that “Jan Sobieski had great talents mixed with great vices and defects, his deeds were indeed great, and perhaps they would be even greater if his unseemly greed and the vision of private benefits did not obscure his mind”? ...
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