Some Notes on the Literary Sources of Historia Belli Sveco- Moscovitici Decennalis by Johannes Widekindi

Abstract

The article aims at giving a more systematic and complete notion of Johannes Widekindi’s literary (as opposed to documentary) sources in his historiographical work on the Ingrian war — apart from the wellknown usage of Stanislaw Kobierzycki and Petrus Petrejus — than has been done in previous research. First, all the references in the Novgorod appendix are deciphered. Furthermore, sources are listed for two large digressions in the main text, namely on Pskov and on Cossacks. Some notes are made on the usage of Axel Oxenstierna’s sketch on Swedish-Polish relations in the first book of Widekindi’s work. All in all, more than a dozen works are listed, and some of them are discovered to be Widekindi’s sources for the first time, among others Theatrum humanae vitae by Theodor Zwinger, Commentariorum Chotinensis belli libri tres by Jakub Sobieski, the anonymous Tragoedia Moscovitica, the poems by Johannes Narssius and others. In general, the list of sources attest to Widekindi’s interest in Polish affairs rather than any concern for Russian history.