Jeremi Wisniowiecki (1612-20 August 1651) was a Polish-Lithuanian magnate and the father of King Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki. He was nicknamed "Hammer of the Cossacks" for his many victories over the Zaporizhian Sich during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of the mid-17th century.
Biography[]
Jeremi Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki was born in Lubni, Kyiv Voivodeship, Poland-Lithuania in 1612, the son of Prince Michal Wisniowiecki, and a scion of an Orthodox Ruthenian noble family (his mother was Moldavian, the daughter of his namesake, Prince Ieremia Movila). He was raised by his uncle Konstanty Wisniowiecki, who oversaw Jeremi's Polonization and conversion to Catholicism. In 1631, Wisniowiecki returned to Poland from his travels abroad and took over the management of his father's huge estate in present-day Ukraine, formally converting to Catholicism in 1632 and depriving Ruthenian Orthodoxy of a powerful protector. In 1633-1634, he fought against Russia in the Smolensk Campaign, capturing Rylsk and Sevsk before retreating; during this campaign, he commanded two-thirds of Adam Kisiel's troops.
In 1634, King Wladyslaw IV Vasa named Wisniowiecki the Castellan of Kyiv in recognition of his services. In 1636, Wisniowiecki became rivals with the royal court after powerful courtiers blocked the King's marriage to Wisniowiecki's sister, and his success in preventing new titles from being created angered the rival magnate Jerzy Ossolinski. Jeremi also served as a deputy to the Sejm from 1635 to 1646. In 1637, he and Mikolaj Potocki crushed Pavel Pavluk's Cossack uprising. In 1641, on the death of his uncle Konstanty, Wisniowiecki became the last male in his family and inherited his uncle's lands and power, and he fought against the Tatars from 1640 to 1646, crushed Tugay Bey's Tatar army at the Battle of Ochmatow in 1644, and was named Voivode of Ruthenia in 1646. He opposed the King's plan for a war with the Ottoman Turks in spite of the King offering him the title Field Crown Hetman, but he served as the King's main general during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, defeating the Cossacks in a skirmish at the Battle of Starokostiantyniv. He grew angry at Kisiel and the other Polish magnates for seeking peace with Bohdan Khmelnytsky's increasingly successful rebels, instead arguing for an increase in the size of the army. In the first half of 1649, the negotiations with the Cossacks fell through, and Wisniowiecki defended the stronghold of Zbarazh from a major Cossack-Tatar siege.
This victory persuaded the Sejm to take Wisniowiecki's advice and increase the army size to 51,000 troops. In 1651, he commanded the left wing of the Polish-Lithuanian army at the Battle of Berestechko, another great victory over the Cossack rebels, but he suddenly fell ill near the village of Pawolocz and died on 20 August 1651 at the age of 39. His son Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki would go on to rule over Poland-Lithuania as king later in the century.