HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

92 DARIUSZ KOŁODZIEJCZYKcampaign) to become a Muslim ghazi at the expense of a weak neighbor.The Commonwealth was completely unprepared for the war. Great HetmanJan Sobieski, head of the "French faction," was in sharp conflict withthe pro-Habsburg King Michał. The hetman warned of war and asked formoney to raise an army, but his opponents claimed that such an army couldoverthrow the king and that the Turkish threat was being used as a pretext.It was believed that the few Tatar captives the hetman sent to Warsaw werein fact disguised Armenian merchants from Lviv. The commonly held opinionwas that "the Turks will arrive to sell soap, raisins, and carpets as theydo every year"; the danger of war was merely the "hetman's imagination."15A remarkably situated fortress, Кат'^апес'-РоаіГв'куі was consideredin the sixteenth century to be a main bulwark against "barbarism" and wascompared to La Valetta in Malta. The city was surrounded by the deepgorge of the river Smotryć and had vertical granite walls. Between the cityand the castle a moat was built with a bridge over it. A hydrotechnical systemraised the level of water in the gorge. At the beginning of the seventeenthcentury, the Dutch Hornwerk was added (the Poles called it NowyZamek} 6 and the Turks, tabye-i kebir 11 ). However, the fortress that hadbeen impenetrable in the sixteenth century was no longer unconquerable inthe epoch of Vauban; the Ottoman army, with its modern artillery andassisted by French renegade specialists, was able to seize the castle, whichwas situated higher than the city.The Ottoman army departed from Edirne on 4 June and reachedKam'^anec' on 18 August. 18After suffering nine days of heavy bombardmentand the loss of the Hornwerk, the Poles surrendered. On the followingFriday, 2 September, Mehmed IV celebrated the cuma namazı 19in theformer cathedral. He appointed a governor (beylerbeyi) of the new provinceand a judge (kadi) and ordered the establishment of three pious foundations(vakïfs). The viziers Ahmed Köprülü and Musahib Mustafa, the futuregrand vizier Kara Mustafa, and the chief preacher Vani Efendi followed thesultan's example. Seven churches were converted to mosques and two15See "Relacya Kamieńca wziętego przez Turków w roku 1672 opisana wierszem polskimprzez Stanisława Makowieckiego z Wielkiego Łukoszyna, stolnika latyczewskiego," inAGAD, Sucha (Branicki Family Collection), sygn. 168/199.16Literally, New Castle.17Great bastion.18For more detailed chronology and further bibliography, see my forthcoming book, Ejaletkamieniecki 1672-1699. Turcy na Podolu (to be published by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe).19Friday prayers.