:

Brian L. Davies,
Prof. of History,
University of Texas at San Antonio (USA)
THE LISOVCHIKI IN MUSCOVY, 16071616
An important new study by David Parrott argues that historians assumption that mercenary forces must have been less reliable (costlier, more corrupt and inefficient) than state-recruited and state-administered armies has led
them to underestimate the importance of private military enterprise in European
warfare in the 1590s1630s. Parrott points out that even the Swedish army of
Gustav II Adolf could not rely entirely on Swedish canton-raised militia, so
that by 1629 Gustav II Adolf had to take about 16 000 mercenaries into his
army, some of them troops released from service of bankrupt Denmark, many
of them men newly raised on contract by German and Scottish enterprisers
(Parrott D. The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in
Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. P. 118,
126). Reliance on hired troops was common further east in Europe, too. The
emergency confronting Muscovys Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii forced him to employ
several thousand Swedish-raised mercenaries, and there was a long tradition of
royal resort to hired troops in Poland-Lithuania, where restrictions on the use of
the pospolite ruszenie and the budget and size of the kings Wojsko kwarciane
had pushed the last two Jagiellonian kings and King Stefan Bathory to hire
large numbers of foreign mercenaries for short periods. A factor further promoting military enterprise was the frequency of private military adventures that did
not have the blessing of any legitimate monarch, such as the Magnate Wars in
Moldavia and the involvement of Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian magnates
in the First and Second Dmitriads in Muscovy.
One of the most interesting private forces in the Time of Troubles were the
Lisovchiki (Lisowczycy). They were formed in 1607 from mutinous PolishLithuanian troops outlawed by King Sigismund III after the Rokosz, and led
into Muscovy by their commander Alexander Lisowski, who augmented them
with cossack volunteers and renegade Muscovite servicemen and brought them
into the service of False Dmitrii II. The Lisovchiki participated in most of the
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major battles of the period of the Second Dmitriad, including the long siege
of Troitse-Sergeev Monastery. Lisowski then obtained pardon and brought
his regiment them over to King Sigismund III in 1610. From 1613 to 1616
the Lisovchiki conducted daring and devastating flying raids across Muscovy.
Polish historians have been very interested in the Lisovchiki from 1843, when
Maurycy Dzieduszycki devoted a two-volume study to them; they were used in
the construction of Polish Sarmatist ideology, and they have been romanticized
in Polish historical painting (Jozef Brandt) and popular literature (Ossendowski,
Sujkowski, Korkozowicz). Rembrandts painting The Polish Rider is said to be
a portrait of a Lisovchik.
The founder and first commander of the Lisovchiki, Alexander Josef
Janowicz Lisowski, was born near Vilnius sometime between 1575 and 1580.
His forebears had emigrated from Ducal Prussia to Zmudz. The Lisowskis were
middling szlachta but had some important political connections in Lithuania and
Poland: Alexanders brother Szczesny was marszalek dworu to Cardinal Jerzy
Radziwill, and his brother Krzysztof was a dworzanin in the service of King
Sigismund August (Dzieduszycki M. Krotki rys dziejw i spraw Lisowczykov.
T. I. Lww, 1843. S. 14; Tyszkowski K. Aleksander Lisowski i jego zagony na
Moskwe // Przeglad Historyczno-Wojskowy 1932. Vol. 5. Nr. 1. S. 2; Wisner H.
Lisowczycy. Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1976. S. 22).
Aleksandr Lisowskis first military service was in Moldavia in 1599, during Chancellor Jan Zamoyskis campaign to install Ieremia Movila as puppet hospodar of Moldavia. Lisowski began as a simple soldier in the private
army of Jan Potocki, starosta of Kamieniec; in 1600 he fought at the battle
of Teleajan, Zamoyskis great victory over Prince Mihei Viteazul (Wisner H.
Lisowczycy. S. 23; Dzieduszycki M. Krotki rys T. I. S. 1719). The 1593
1617 Magnate Wars in Moldavia were not only contemporaneous with much
of the Time of Troubles in Muscovy; they provided some important precedents
for Polish intervention in the latter. The Magnate Wars offered an excuse for
sejmik-organized cavalry choragwie to break rules forbidding campaigning
abroad; they were waged contrary to the interests of King Sigsimund III, fought
by the private armies of magnate adventurers (the Potockis, Koreckis, and
Vyshnevetskys, with whom the Movila clan was allied by marriage); and they
revealed the tensions between szlachta forces and Ukrainian and Zaporozhian
cossacks, the latters interest in continuing fighting against the Tatars eventually
aligning them with Viteazul and thereby threatening to embroil Poland in war
with the Turks. To prevent further cossack interference with Polish operations
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in Moldavia Zamojski eventually ordered Field Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski

and the Ukrainian magnate Kirik Ruzhynsky to campaign in Ukraine to crush
the armies of Nalivaiko and Loboda (Semenova L. E. Kniazhestva Valakhiia
i Moldaviia konets XIV nachalo XIX v. Moskva: Indrik, 2006. S. 171173;
Hrushevsky M. History of Ukraine-Rus. T. 7: The Cossack Age to 1625. Trans.
Bohdan Struminski. Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian
Studies, 1999. P. 166.)
In 1604 the newly-crowned king of Sweden, Charles X, challenged
Sigismund III Wasa by invading Livonia. Lisowski was among the Polish
Crown officers in Livonia joining their troops in confederatio and mutinying over pay arrears. The mutineers proceeded to despoil Crown and magnate
estates in Livonia and Lithuania in compensation. In a letter of 10 December
1604 Lithuanian Field Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz denounced Lisowski
as a godless man and a rebel. Lisowski was sentenced to deprivation of
szlachta privileges and banishment from the Commonwealth. But instead of
emigrating he joined the Zebrzydowski Rebellion against the King (also called
the Rokosz, 16051607). In the Rokosz he joined the regiment of his patron
Janusz Radziwill and fought at the Battle of Guzow (July 5 1607) as the rotmistrz of a choragiew of mounted cossacks (Wisner H. Lisowczycy. S. 2733;
Grabowski R. Guzw 5 VII 1607. Zabrze: Wydawnictwo Inforteditions, 2005.
S. 78). The Rokoszanie were soundly defeated at Guzow, but the King found
it advisable to complete the suppression of the Rokosz by offering amnesty
to the rebellions most important leaders. Such amnesty was not extended to
Lisowski, however, because of his previous involvement in mutiny in Livonia.
After Guzow Lisowski took about a hundred men and crossed the frontier to
Starodub.
A continuing controversy in the historiography of the Troubles is the question of whether the attachment of several Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian
colonels to the new army of False Dmitrii II in 1607 represented a camouflaged military intervention by King Sigismund III, or represented private initiatives undertaken by certain magnates without the kings approval. Jarema
Maciszewski placed this question at the center of his famous 1968 study, and
Igor Olegovich Tiumentsev has recently re-examined it through a close analysis
of the diary and papers of Jan Sapieha, Hetman of False Dmitrii IIs hired troops
(Maciszewski J. Polska a Moskwa 16031618. Opinie i stanowiska szlachty
polskiej. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1968. S. 3738, 5051,
7475, 112113, 116167; Tiumentsev I. O. 1) Inozemnye soldaty na sluzhbe
Lzhedmitriiu II, 1607 nachalo 1610 gg. // Inozemtsy v Rossii v XVXVII vekakh.
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Sbornik materialov konferentsiia 20022004 gg. Ed. A. K. Levykin. Moskva:

Drevnekhranilishche, 2006. S. 270271, 283; 2) Smutnoe vremia v Rossii
nachala XVII stoletiia. Dvizhenie Lzhedmitriia II. Moskva: Nauka, 2008.
S. 92127, 144, 148, 151152, 154 passim.). Tiumentsevs study of the army
and administration of False Dmitrii II is the most thorough yet produced. He
finds that most of the hired troops first assembling under False Dmitrii IIs banner at Starodub in 1607 were Belarusian and Ukrainian szlachta organized in
companies of petyhorcy (Circassian-style armored lancers); that some of them
were Rokoszanie, but many not; that the movement of Rokosz veterans into
Muscovy was not encouraged by the King, but strongly forbidden by him; that
their colonels and hetmans, including Jan Sapieha, were not operating under the
secret instruction of the king or Chancellor Lew Sapieha; that the hired troops
brought over to False Dmitrii II by Jan Sapieha in early 1608 were mostly
Lithuanian and Belarusian szlachta who had served under Chodkiewicz in
Livonia and joined in the Confederatio over pay arrears; and that the King
strongly disapproved of these adventurers because he saw their involvement
in Muscovy as making the pacification of the Rokosz all the more difficult and
pulling Muscovy into his war with Sweden.
A summary of Lisowskis role in the army of False Dmitrii II shows that
he arrived sometime before November 1607 with a few hundred men; that
he showed himself of value in recruiting to False Dmitrii IIs veterans of the
now-dispersed Bolotnikov movement, especially in Seversk region, as well as
cossacks (some Zaporozhian and Don Host cossacks, some Host-unaffiliated
aspirant cossacks from Ukraine and southern Muscovy); that his regiment of
Lisovchiki comprised a few companies of husarz lancers and petihorcy but a
larger contingent of cossacks, bringing its maximum strength to five or six thousand men in August 1608; that in the scheme of the de facto division of command authority among Ruzhynsky, Zarutsky, and Jan Sapieha, the Lisovchiki
generally served under Sapieha, but separated from him after the first siege of
Troitse-Sergeev monastery was lifted. The Lisovchiki participated in several
of the major battles against the armies of Vasilii Shuiskii (Bolkhov, Karachev,
Briansk, Rakhmantsevo, Tver, etc.) and played a leading role in extending the
Tushinite movement towards Riazan, Kolomna, Iaroslavl, and the Volga. Over
time, however, Lisowski reduced his infantry contingents and artillery in order
to maximize his mobility, and this made it more difficult for him to contribute
to protracted sieges. The Lisovchiki did participate intermittently in the siege
of Troitse-Sergeev Monastery, which long remained an important Tushinite
objective not only because of the reputed wealth of its treasury but because
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monastery estates offered mercenary companies better prospects for forage

and kormlenie. A sign of Lisowskis frustration at the interminable TroitseSergeev siege was his response to the death of his brother beneath its walls: he
massacred 202 prisoners taken from a munitions train trying to reinforce the
monastery, in response to which the monasterys defenders executed an equal
number of their own prisoners atop their fortress walls. Lisowski ruthlessly
suppressed an anti-Tushinite rebellion in Iaroslavl; Conrad Bussow describes
Lisowski as then pushing deeper into the interior, killing and exterminating
all who were encountered on his path: men, women children, dvoriane, townsmen, and peasants (Bussow C. Moskovskaia khronika Konrada Bussova //
Smuta v Moskovskom gosudarstve. Rossiia nachala XVII stoletiia v zapiskakh
sovremennikov. Ed. A. I. Pliguzov and I. A. Tikhoniuk. Moskva: Sovremennik,
1989. S. 350, 355; Budzilo J. Istoriia lozhnogo Dmitriia (iz dnevnika Budily) //
Pamiatniki smutnogo vremeni: Tushinskii vor. Lichnost, okruzhenie, vremia.
Dokumenty i materialy. Ed. V. I. Kuznetsov and I. P. Kulakova. Moskva: Izd.
Moskovskogo universiteta, 2001. S. 220221). In 1610 Lisowski gave the
commune of Pskov military assistance against de la Gardies Swedes, but his
foraging and kormlenie exaction around Pskov so alarmed the Pskovichi they
decided not to admit his regiment within their walls. The Lisovchiki then settled
in at Voronach to feed (Budzilo J. Istoriia lozhnogo Dmitriia S. 223, 287, 290).
Lisowski spent the winter of 16091610 at Voronach. His Russians and
cossacks having deserted him, he decided to march on Krasnoe with a handful of Lisovchiki (and 800 English and Irish mercenaries he had convinced to
defect from de la Gardie), hold Krasnoe for King Sigismund III, and bargain for
it the Kings pardon for his role in the Livonian mutiny. Having seized Krasnoe,
he got Adam Talosz, kasztelan of Zmudz, to intervene and convince the King
and Chancellor Lew Sapieha to pardon him. He also received a reward of 200
gold pieces and permission to take service under Chodkiewicz and raise a new
regiment of 1000 horse without pay, to be remunerated solely by plunder.
This regiment soon rose to 2000 horse. (Bussow C. Moskovskaia khronika
S. 358; Tyszkowski K. Aleksander Lisowski S. 8; Wisner H. Lisowczycy. S. 39).
After Hetman Chodkiewiczs withdrawal from Moscow in August 1612
most Polish operations in Muscovy took the form of independently undertaken
raids by particular colonels, including Lisowski. In 1613 Lisowski raided the
districts of Suzdal, Kostroma, Iaroslavl, Pereiaslavl-Riazan, Tula, Serpukhov,
and Aleksin, and then returned to his base at Krasnoe. In 1614 the Lisovchiki
made a successful sortie on behalf of Andrej Sapiehas force besieged at
Smolensk. For his 1615 campaign Lisowski, now based at Mogilev, issued
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a call to volunteers from across the Commonwealth to join his regiment without pay and campaign in Muscovy in support of Hetman Chodkiewicz. When
he started this campaign in May he had just 600 horse, but his pulk increased
to over 2000 men by September. That year Lisowskis campaign again took
the form of a flying raid across a vast distance, starting from Briansk, circling
through Viazma, Rzhev, Tver and nearly as far north as Sol Galitskaia before
turning south through Shuiia, Suzdal, Kolomna, and Tula and dashing west
back to Seversk. Once again his strategy focused on burning towns, plundering monasteries, and moving fast enough to avoid interception by Dmitrii
Pozharskii and other Muscovite commanders (Tyszkowski K. 1) Aleksander
Lisowski S. 1426; 2) Materialy do zycoriusa Aleksandru Lisowskiego //
Przeglad Historyczno-Wojskowy. Vol. 5. Nr. 1. 1932. S. 101102; Wisner H.
Lisowczycy. S. 4264). These raids may have been inspired by the success
of Krzysztof Radziwills 1581 corps volante expedition, which covered over
1400 kilometers and nearly captured Ivan IV at Staritsa (Kupisz D. The PolishLithuanian Army in the Reign of King Stefan Bathory // Warfare in Eastern
Europe, 15001800. Ed. Brian Davies. Leiden and Boston: EJ Brill, 2012.
P. 8890). Lisowski was preparing another campaign from Starodub when he
fell from his horse and died of a stroke on 11 October 1616.
His regiment continued under his name, and the Lisovchiki actually
achieved their greatest fame in Polish historiography and popular culture for
operations they conducted after his death, when they were under the command
of Stanislaw Czaplinski and then Walenty Rogawski. After 1617 the Lisovchiki
withdrew from Muscovy and took station at Brailov in Podolia. In 1619 and
1620 they took hire under Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II, who used them in
Hungary against Bethlen Gabor, as a counterweight to Gabors hussars; they
also raided in Moravia, where they killed Lutheran noblemen and pastors. Their
service with the Emperor was permitted by King Sigismund III because this was
a way to honor his obligations to the Emperor without committing to a full-scale
intervention by Polish Crown forces and thereby risking war with the Turks; it
also had the advantage of removing the Lisovchiki from Commonwealth soil
(Gajecky G., Baran A. The Cossacks in the Thirty Years War. Vol. I. Rome:
PP. Basiliani, 1983. P. 29, 30, 32, 40). After Zolkiewskis disastrous defeat by
the Turks at Cecora in 1620 the Emperor released the Lisovchiki from service
so they could return to the Commonwealths Podolian frontier and join the
forces of Chodkiewicz and Sahaidaczny in their great stand against the Turks at
Khotin. Ten companies of Lisovchik I about 1200 horse fought at Khotin
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in 1621. (Podhorodecki L. Chocim 1621. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Obrony

Narodowej, 1988. S. 57, 95; Dzieduszycki M. Krotki rys T. II. S. 9, 32).
In 1624 Stanislaw Lubomirski, Palatine of Ruthenia, negotiated with
Emperor Ferdinand II to send several thousand hired cossacks and Lisovchiki
into the Emperors service in Silesia, but by then King Sigismund III and
the Sejm had lost all patience with the tumultuous passages of Lisovchiki,
and their Constitution of 1624 abolished the Lisovchik formation. Veteran
Lisovchiki did participate in the 1624 Silesian campaign, but as troops in a
special cossack corps under Polish Crown officers. Other former Lisovchiki
entered the private detachments of Commonwealth magnates, and many emigrated to the Zaporozhian Sich and participated in rebellions that had to be put
down by Crown Hetman Stanislaw Koniecpolski. (Gajecky G., Baran A. The
Cossacks Vol. II. P. 28, 72).
Key words: Time of Troubles, Lisovchiki, Cossacks

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