Hail Caesar! – 1505-1526
Many of the political reforms of Igor II at the end of the 15th century had run contrary to the interests of the Jewish High Priesthood. For over a century the Kohen Gadol had been a strong supporter of the Golden Liberties – which kept the monarchy weak and allowed Jerusalem to exert significant influence throughout the Polish realms. Theologically, the High Priesthood was deeply sceptical of the new regime of the tolerance reigning in Kiev, that saw heretics and heathens treated as equals to Orthodox Jews in Poland, and even invited into the ranks of the King’s advisors. Worst of all – Igor II had interfered directly in clerical issues by convening a council of senior Rabbis in Kiev independently of the High Priesthood.
With this frustration swelling between church and state, the Kohen Gadol came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to limit the rise of the monarchy so long as Israel remained tied to Poland. At the death of Igor II, he boldly crowned the Prince of Samaria King Pekah II, drawing his regnal name from the ancient Hebrews, as King of Israel. Ivan had hoped that he could quietly extricate Israel from the Polish empire, and in doing so relieve himself and his successors from the interference of Polish Kings. This proved to be a dramatic miscalculation.
Igor denounced the Israelite revolt and promised to send an army to the Middle East to restore his birth right. The rebels had bargained on the Principality of Ascalon supporting them in their efforts to break with Kiev, allowing them to combine their navies in order to keep the Poles at bay. Instead, Ascalon remained loyal to the Poles and provided safe passage to the loyalist army to the Middle East. While these events all but doomed the project for an independent Israel, Jewish civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean itself was put under threat by the predatory actions of the Catholic Pope.
For centuries the Pope had been not only the spiritual master of Latin Christianity – but the overlord of a powerful secular domain. During the Middle Ages, the Pope had added the great Egyptian city of Alexandria to his territories In Italy. In the late 15th century the Papacy had dramatically expanded its dominion in Egypt – pushing the Templar Order into the Sudan and absorbing the minor Christian states in the region. The Israelite rebellion appeared to be an opportunity for the Pope to strike out into the Holy Land.
The Papal forces had the advantage of proximity to the battlefield in the summer of 1506. By the time Igor’s expedition reached the region, the Papal army had already occupied a large part of Israel, including the Holy City of Jerusalem itself. Faced by these twin threats, Pekah surrendered his throne to Igor in January 1507, however the Pope refused to return the occupied territories to the new regime. A Polish-Ascalonite army faced down the Papacy in a number of inconclusive engagements through Israel over the course of 1507 – reclaiming Jerusalem from the Christians but finding themselves in deadlock. With little prospect of victory without substantial reinforcements, Igor agreed to a truce – surrendering the southernmost Israeli provinces, that allowed the Papacy to create a direct land route between Egypt and their lands in the Hedjaz, including the sacred sites around Mount Sinai.
The Poles would soon compensate for their losses in the Levant through a flurry of territorial aggrandisement in the east. In 1512, the Poles took advantage of a conflict between the powerful Emirate of Tver and the Emyür Khagante to seize control of the rich cities of Tver, Moscow and Rostov – all historically important to the Russian people, but mostly inhabited by Tatars and Mongols. Tver in particular had become a world-renown centre of Hindu scholarship, with many of the most influential Turkic and Mongol holymen making their homes in the city. Five years later in 1517 Poland went to war once again, capturing a scour of territory from the Mongol Blue Horde just south of its recently captured lands around Moscow and Tver. Finally, in 1523 it annexed its Tatar vassals in Karamans – establishing control along the northern shore of the Caspian Sea. It was clear to all the Poland saw her destiny in the east.
The early 16th century was a time of cultural outpouring in Poland as the Renaissance, albeit one with Slavic characteristics, made its way to eastern Europe. Throughout, it appeared that many, within the Polish elite at least, were grappling with the position of Slavic civilisation in the world. This period saw the creation of a number of great works of art and architecture – with the Shamir Synagogue in central Kiev being the most imposing example to have survived to the modern day. The most influential piece of art produced in these years was a work of literature, the epic poem Illiya’s March which told the story of the Polish Crusade and Illiya the Bloodhound in suitably grandiose terms. The poem was authored by Kurt Warncke, a Pomeranian Samaritan, and openly linked the glories of King Illiya to the recently deceased Igor II – and quietly praised his policies of religious toleration through its emphasis of Poland’s Samaritan history, Illiya having been a proud follower of the faith throughout his life. While Warncke’s ballad told the story of an almost Asiatic Slavic race – irreversibly at odds with the cruel and corrupt Christian West, others looked more favourably on the Western tradition. In particular to the pre-Christian age of Imperial Rome, with Igor III endorsing a genealogy that preposterously traced the Vyshenky family’s roots all the way back to Julius Caesar.
While many in Poland looked eastward, in Europe a whole New World was discovered in the west. In 1508 a Dutch explorer named Willem de Lange reached the Caribbean Sea, having boldly set forth on an expedition across the Atlantic in the belief that it would lead him to Asia. There, he discovered the Lesser and Greater Antilles islands as well as continental South America. Within a decade the Netherlands had established their control over a number of the small islands of the Lesser Antilles, during the 1520s they would be joined in the New World by the Abaddids of Andalucia, who brought the might of one of Europe’s richest empires behind their efforts in a way the Dutch never could – beginning the age of colonialism in earnest. By the mid-16th century Italy and Denmark with notable early success, and Sardinia, Skotland and the Holy Roman Empire with greater trepidation, had all taken the first steps towards building empires in the Americas.
One of the most remarkable figures of this era, and a symbol of the age of religious toleration in Poland, was Oronartai Belugunutei. Oronartai was a Pecheneg – a Muslim Tatar tribal group of proud heritage whose fortunes had declined over the centuries. By the 15th century they were largely based in the area around the city of Orsha – midway between Minsk and Smolensk in northeastern Ruthenia. Having long been the subjects of various Jewish Russian Princes, the Orsha Pechenegs achieved a degree of autonomy under the reforms of Igor II in the 1480s when Oronartai’s father, Kushug, was made Beylik of Orsha in exchange for his support for the royalist cause.
When Oronartai succeeded his father in 1501 he based himself primarily in Kiev, where he developed a reputation for honesty and competence and developed an influential network of contacts. He held great respect among the Tatar and Mongol peoples of the east – both settled and nomadic, within and beyond Poland’s borders – who viewed him as an honest broker with the monarchy. A man of culture and philosophy, Oronartai had impressed the young King Igor III early in his reign during the 1510s through his elucidation of his vision of Poland as the point of unity of Asia and Europe, east and west, Tatar and Slav. Ever since the days of Igor II, Christians and Samaritans had begun to play a part in the royal administration – yet prior the idea that a Muslim Tatar could become a figure of influence was alarming to many traditionalists. Despite this, Igor made Oronartai his chancellor in 1519 – making him one of the most powerful figures in the land.
Oronartai would be one of the key driving forces behind the eye-catching establishment of the Tsardom of Poland. In 1526, the Kohen Gadol was invited to travel from Jerusalem to Kiev – joining Igor III as he prayed in the resplendence of the recently completed Shamir Synagogue, he placed an Imperial diadem upon Igor’s head and pronounced him Tsar, no longer a King, but an Emperor. The carefully choreographed abolition of the Kingdoms of Poland and Ruthenia, and creation of the Tsardom of Poland, with the title King of Israel being retained for its religious significance, had value beyond merely boosting the ego of the ruler. Firstly, it reemphasised the sublimation of the High Priesthood to the monarchy. Secondly it distanced the Tsar from the petty Kings of the Christian West and emphasised his seniority over them – placing him on a status equal to the Holy Roman Emperor, Arab Caliph and even the distant Chinese Emperor. Thirdly, with its insinuation of universal power – crowning Igor as an Emperor expanded the authority of the Polish monarch beyond a narrow Slavic ethnic-based Kingdom. Finally, the birth of a nominally new state, the Third Polish State according to some historiographers, was an opportunity to overhaul Poland’s laws and institutions to further solidify the political settlement created by Igor II’s despotism.
