John III Sobieski - victory at Chocim

The victory won by Hetman John Sobieski over a 35,000-strong Turkish army at Chocim on 11 November 1673 brought him great fame and opened the way to the throne of Poland (1676-1696). Even before the Chocim Victory, the Hetman, praised in literary works, gained recognition among masters of the pen, graphic artists, painters and medallists.

It is exemplified by two medals created even before the royal coronation. The author of one of them is Jan Hoehn the Younger (†1693), a leading medal maker of the epoch, connected with Gdańsk. It shows the bust of Hetman standing straight ahead wearing a collar and a delia. It is surrounded by a Latin inscription, translating: " John Sobieski, Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Kingdom of Poland". The reverse side is filled with a view of the Battle of Chocim, modelled on Franciszek Gratta’s drawing. The representation is supplemented by a few-line Latin inscription, in which Sobieski is compared to the Sarmatian Mars. According to tradition, the medal was to be distributed among the assembled nobility during the Hetman's entry to the Sejm or the electoral field in 1674. The author of the second work is probably also Jan Hoehn the Younger. The figure of the commander on the obverse, maintained in a similar stylistic convention, was described with the phrase: "PATRIAE SCUTUM - NATALE DETECTAE", translated: "The family shield of the unveiled homeland", which glorifies Sobieski's achievements as a continuator of the family tradition. It is also the tone of the fourteen-line Latin inscription on the reverse, translated: "To John Sobieski, Marshal and Great Hetman of the Crown, for breaking the peace which his father concluded at Chocim, revenge also taken over the enemy, abolishing the army, conquering the camp, taking the booty, conquering Wallachia and Moldavia as Polish provinces, extending the borders to the Danube, making a funeral offering to his mother's grandfather, for the memory of eternal posterity solemnly bestowed" (translation after: Chwała i sława Jana III w sztuce i literaturze XVII–XX w. Katalog wystawy jubileuszowej z okazji trzechsetlecia odsieczy wiedeńskiej [The Glory and Fame of John III in the Art and Literature of the 17th-20th Centuries. Catalogue of the Jubilee Exhibition Celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the Relief of Vienna], Warsaw 1983, pp. 206-207, catalogue 169).

Tomasz Markiewicz