Michał I (Anty)Jagiellończyk. Bobrzyński i jego ocena rządów jagiellońskich na kartach Dziejów Polski w zarysie ………. 109

The work charts historiosophical criteria for the ideal, early-modern Polish monarch on the base of Michał Bobrzyński’s Dzieje Polski w zarysie (The Brief History of Poland). Those criteria are inspired by the historical challenges that Cracovian historian formulated for Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and personal qualities inferred from his particular words of appraisal and critique towards all mentioned by him Polish rulers (such as strong authority, paternalism, high awareness of Polish raison d’état, assertiveness towards estates, international pragmatism and expansionism). Those instruments are used to analyse his evaluation of particular rulers’ and to what extent had they exhausted criteria of his ideal, early-modern monarch. Four archetypes emerge – unfulfi lled autocrat, ambitious debutant, errant knight and slothful intriguant. Ladislaus Jogaila, Ladislaus of Varna, Casimir Jagiellon, John Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, Sigismund the Old and Sigismund Augustus are assigned to them and – in their terms and historiosophy of Michał Bobrzyński – reviewed as rulers. The Cracovian historian positively rated strong but prematurely dead John and Alexander, as well as ambitious Jogaila and Casimir. On the other hand, he tranchantly criticised last representatives of the dynasty, accusing them of squandering the Polish Golden Era and subutilising their contemporary modernising opportunities to institutionalise the Polish kingship. He unflatteringly described the rule of Ladislaus of Varna for his inability to restrain Zbigniew Oleśnicki’s infl uence and his docility towards the Church. Michał Bobrzyński had studied Polish history to identify reasons for PLC’s demise, which he ascribed to its unsuccessful institutionalisation. Having believed in the strong executional power of the king or parliament, he saw it as an inextricable stage in the evolution of the state and Poland which, having been excluded from it, had fallen prey to external powerhouses. No king in his eyes had succeeded to fulfill his storied mission to institutionalise Poland and by it every one of them had failed. Amongst Jagiellons, Sigismund the Old had failed most and Casimir Jagiellon least.