Participation of peasants in the fight against the Swedish Deluge Stanislaw Szczotka [1939].

INTRODUCTION.

The history of Poland has so far been written primarily as the history of dynasties and powerful noble families, and the influence of this social stratum and the Church on the governance of the state and the fate of the Republic. Immeasurably less has been written by historians about the peasants. For what could they write about them, considering them to be a numerous stratum, but limited only to the arduous daily work on the lord's manor.

The belief was established that the Polish nobility owed its privileged position to chivalrous craftsmanship, thanks to which the Republic grew in strength, expanded its borders and sometimes became a powerful superpower. This was indeed the case during the period of struggle for the rights and privileges of the noble state, at the turn of the Middle Ages, at the prelude to modern history. After that, however, the combat value of the nobility's common movement quickly began to diminish, and finally became extremely problematic.

In the army of the old Republic the number of peasants began to increase, who grasped weapons in their hands, hard from labor, and yet after returning from war expeditions they had to harness themselves again to the heavy yoke of serfdom. They lacked human rights, not to mention state privileges. [...]