An article by Ekaterina Boltunova in the collective monograph "Picturing Russian Empire"

As part of the collective monograph “Picturing Russian Empire” (Oxford University Press, 2023-2024; Ed. by Valerie Kivelson, Sergei Kozlov and Joan Neuberger), an article was published by the director of the Institute of Regional Historical Studies, Ekaterina Boltunova, entitled “Visual Polemics: The Time of Troubles in Polish and Russian Historical Memory (1611-1949)".

Oxford University Press

Annotation:
In 1730, a new book describing Warsaw and its environs was published in Dresden. Its author was Christian Erndtel, a botanist, meteorologist, and physician to Augustus II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. The book mostly covered Erndtel’s research interests: the geography and botany of lands adjacent to the capital of Poland. However, history was featured there, too, and often appeared as a fascinating adventure story. In his section on the Warsaw castle, the royal physician describes the rich collection of paintings preserved there and mentions that the royal chambers once had two paintings by “Dolabella, the famous Italian painter: one showing the capture of Smolensk and the public act whereby . . . the famous Polish commander, Hetman (military commander) Zolkiewius, in the presence of senators, handed. . . . the imprisoned Grand Prince of Muscovy to the king (Sigismund III).” With a degree of sadness, the physician mentioned that the other painting “was taken by Tsar Peter of Russia . . . to Muscovy.” Erndtel led readers to believe that this masterpiece was lost. He also mentioned that Peter “wanted to get rid of” the Sigismund III column, a monument to the victorious seventeenth-century king that had been erected in front of the Warsaw castle. Erndtel reported it was only the “tireless campaign that several senators led against this threat of desecration” that ultimately prevented the Tsar from destroying it.1 Erndtel got his facts right, except for one detail. In the late s and early s, Augustus II gave the Emperor of Russia not one, but both of the paintings he mentions. In terms of historical signi cance, his mistake was understandable: the painting the physician describes—Dolabella’s Stanisaw ókiewski Brings the Captured Shuisky Kings to King Sigismund and Prince Wadysaw at the 1611 Sejm—was the one that mattered. It left a signi cant mark on the Polish national memory, and it is the focus of this article.

Read more about the publication on the Oxford University Press page. The full text of the article is available here.