Military and political print propaganda of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 16th–17th centuries: Printers in the royal service

Abstract

During the last five years of the Livonian War the number of new printed anti-Moscow leaflets has been noticeably increased in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This phenomenon could be explained by the purposeful policy of Stephen Bathory. The most important vectors of this policy were preserved during the reign of Sigismund III. The article analyzes basic principles of interaction between the royal court and polish-lithuanian printers in the last quarter of the 16th century. Previously polish royal court used only a system of publishing privilege to regulate the work of typographers. Starting from the reign of Stephen Bathory, we could notice the new stage of collaboration between the central authority and typographers. In particular, in 1577 appeared the first mobile state press in Polish history. The role of this typography in the war propaganda of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is examined in article. Another important factor of the history of the Polish political press, which is discussed in papers, is the circumstances of the establishment of the position of «archtypographer» by king Sigismund III Vasa. Numerous personal innovations of Polish monarchs determined the appearance of the system of relations between the state and private printing houses for the next century.