Korespondencja Lwa Sapiehy do Radziwiłłów (w latach 1586–1622). Przyczynek do postrzegania na Litwie Stefana Batorego i Zygmunta III Wazy

The topic of this paper is the representation of the two kings of Poland – Stephen Báthory andSigismund III Vasa – emerging from the correspondence of Lew Sapieha addressed to the Radziwiłłsof Birża: Krzysztof ‘the Thunder’ and his son Krzysztof (d. 1640), as well as Mikołaj KrzysztofSierotka of the Nieśwież line of the family. A look at Sapieha’s writings allows to capture thedifferences in his descriptions of the two monarchs and also enables identifying the rhetorictools aimed at making the king’s policies favourable in the eyes of the addressees. Sapieha’s lettersare testaments of his unusual ability to depict reality colourfully; most of all, however, theyenrich the knowledge on the art of epistolography in the past centuries, a topic which remainsnot fully explored by literary historians