The Deluge: the novel

The Deluge (Potop) is the second part of the Trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz, between With Fire and Sword and Pan Wołodyjowski¹. The action takes place in the first years of the war with Sweden, 1655–1657². This page describes the novel as a literary work. The historical events that appear in the novel have separate pages comparing the sources with the text.

What is The Deluge about?

The following guide also discusses the ending.

The central character is Andrzej Kmicic, a soldier who must repair the harm he has caused and regain the trust of Oleńka Billewiczówna. Alongside his story, the Commonwealth moves from surrender and division towards resistance to invasion. The novel can therefore be read on two levels: personal reform and a community’s attempt to recover its capacity to act³.

Lauda: love, violence and a ruined reputation

Herakliusz Billewicz’s will links Oleńka’s future to Kmicic. Their initial affection is challenged by the conduct of his companions and his own violence. After local nobles kill his companions, Kmicic burns Wołmontowicze; Oleńka rejects him. He subsequently abducts her and is defeated by Wołodyjowski in a duel. These events establish the harm that he will have to put right⁴.

Kiejdany: to whom is loyalty owed?

At Kiejdany, Kmicic swears an oath to Janusz Radziwiłł. The announcement of an agreement with Sweden brings him into conflict with officers who reject the hetman’s decision. A conversation with Bogusław Radziwiłł, who describes the Commonwealth as cloth being torn apart by its neighbours, undermines his belief in that service. Kmicic attempts to abduct the prince and is shot⁵.

Babinicz: achievements under an assumed name

Kmicic adopts the name Babinicz. He warns Jasna Góra, participates in its defence and destroys a Swedish gun. He subsequently reaches John II Casimir’s entourage, saves the king and discloses his identity. Within the plot, trust returns gradually: his earlier reputation does not disappear with his first good deed⁶.

The ending: public restoration of his name

Babinicz’s further service takes place during the war, while Oleńka remains caught up in Bogusław’s actions and events at Taurogi. The severely wounded Kmicic returns to Lauda before a royal letter is read in church at Upita. Only then does Oleńka learn what he achieved under his assumed name. The ending joins his public vindication with the couple’s reconciliation⁷.

Structure

The post-war edition published by Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy (the State Publishing Institute) in 1972, edited by Julian Krzyżanowski, on which the Wolne Lektury text is based, divides the novel into three volumes². The first volume begins with an introduction and has 26 chapters, the second 40 and the third 30⁸.

The introduction presents the Samogitian family of the Billewiczes and the will of Herakliusz Billewicz, which destines his granddaughter Aleksandra to be the wife of Andrzej Kmicic⁹. The first chapter opens with the sentence „Przyszedł nowy rok 1655.” ("The new year 1655 came.")¹⁰. The fortunes of the novel's heroes – the fictional Oleńka Billewiczówna and Andrzej Kmicic, to whose historical prototype the PSB refers¹¹ – are interwoven in the novel with historical events. The novel shows the agreement at Kėdainiai¹² (see Capitulation of Kėdainiai (1655)), the defence of Jasna Góra¹³ (see Siege of Jasna Góra (1655)) and the march on Warka¹⁴ (see Battle of Warka (1656)). Other events the novel only mentions: Stanisław Skrzetuski tells of the capitulation at Ujście¹⁵ (see Capitulation at Ujście (1655)), and Anusia Borzobohata brings the news of the Tyszowce Confederation to Taurogi¹⁶ (see Tyszowce Confederation (1655)). The Wolne Lektury note observes that in the novel „fakty historyczne przeplatają się z fabularną fikcją, a postaci rzeczywiste z nierzeczywistymi” ("historical facts are interwoven with the fiction of the plot, and real characters with unreal ones")².

When did he conceive the novel?

The title and subject were settled before serialisation began. In a letter to Stanisław Tarnowski dated 14 January 1884, Sienkiewicz announced that after completing With Fire and Sword and resting, he would turn to the period of the Swedish, Muscovite and Tatar wars and Rákóczi’s invasion. He explicitly named the planned novel Potop¹⁷.

The calendar of his life and work connects the start of writing in autumn 1884 with his letter to Józef Mien of 1 October: he declined another publishing undertaking because he was occupied with a new work¹⁸.

Publication history

Like the other novels of the Trilogy, The Deluge first appeared in instalments in the press. According to the Polski Słownik Biograficzny (Polish Biographical Dictionary, PSB), three dailies began printing it at Christmas 1884: the Warsaw Słowo, Czas and Kurier Poznański. Publication continued until September 1886¹. The publisher's note of Wolne Lektury gives the same three titles and the years 1884–1886². Sienkiewicz was at that time editor-in-chief of Słowo; he had taken up the post at the end of 1881¹.

The Poznań first printing can be checked directly: Kuryer Poznański, no. 297 of 25 December 1884, prints an instalment marked “(1)” on page 2, headed Potop, with Sienkiewicz’s name and the opening of the Introduction¹⁹. The NPLP calendar’s publication list names Dziennik Poznański²⁰; the surviving masthead establishes the newspaper for the verified instalment.

The book edition appeared in Warsaw in 1886¹; Wolne Lektury call it the first book edition². A copy of the 1886 Warsaw edition in the National Library of Poland, printed at Noskowski's press, runs to six volumes²¹.

A chronology of writing and publication

The manuscript, newspaper instalments and printed volumes have separate dates. Each marks a different stage.

1. 18 November 1884:
   Sienkiewicz’s letter to Stanisław Smolka discusses sending manuscript pages and preparing the serial publication.²²
2. 23–25 December 1884:
   NPLP dates the first instalments in Słowo and Czas to 23 and 24 December. The surviving first instalment in Kuryer Poznański is dated 25 December.²⁰²³
3. 21 August 1886:
   Sienkiewicz tells Jadwiga Janczewska that he has finished the novel; the final pages still needed checking and sending.²⁴
4. 2 and 10 September 1886:
   the serial ends in Czas, then Słowo, according to NPLP’s chronology.²⁵
5. 1886:
   the Warsaw first book edition consists of six volumes, preserved in the National Library.²¹

Compare history, novel and film

Two examples distinguish historical evidence from the characters’ adventures.

Writing a serial: deadlines, manuscript and revisions

The novel reached readers before Sienkiewicz finished it. His letter of 18 November 1884 to Stanisław Smolka, editor of Czas, records practical preparations: he promised a substantial part of the manuscript so publication could begin at Christmas and arranged simultaneous printing in Słowo. He was still unsure whether the story would fit into four volumes³⁰. Those projected volumes should not be equated with the three volumes of the modern edition: the first book edition ultimately comprised six²¹.

On 13 December 1884, Maria Sienkiewiczowa wrote to her sister about her husband’s hurried copying and revision of the text before the planned publication launch. Her testimony documents manuscript revision and the intention that the newspapers should start together. That intention does not establish that the first instalments actually appeared on the same day³¹.

What did his working day look like?

In a letter of 26 November 1884, Maria described her husband’s routine: morning writing, a walk after breakfast, caring for her in the evening and writing again at night. She also praised the new novel’s passages that she had read, while observing that the author himself remained dissatisfied³².

The writing coincided with his wife’s illness and death. Sienkiewicz accompanied Maria to health resorts abroad; she died at Falkenstein on 19 October 1885¹. His letter announcing the novel’s completion records a personal aspect of the work: he said that Potop had kept painful thoughts at bay for hours at a time³³. This does not make bereavement the original reason for choosing the subject: he had announced the idea in January 1884.

What did Sienkiewicz read while writing?

In correspondence with Antoni Robert Wolff during work on the novel, he requested Jan Chryzostom Pasek’s Memoirs and Homer’s Iliad in Popiel’s translation. He distinguished their uses: Pasek was needed for writing; Homer was a regular companion when he undertook a larger work³⁴.

In February 1885 he asked the same recipient for Henryk Rzewuski’s Rycerz Lizdejko, which he remembered from school. He wanted to reread this novel about the Swedish-war period and examine its portrayal of the Radziwiłłs, which differed from his own³⁵.

Scholars also identify historical materials. Jolanta Sztachelska lists memoirs by Pasek, Bogusław Radziwiłł, Mikołaj Jemiołowski and Jakub Łoś, as well as Kordecki’s Nova Gigantomachia, among the Trilogy’s sources³⁶. For The Deluge, Tadeusz Bujnicki additionally identifies the chronicle histories of Wawrzyniec Rudawski and Wespazjan Kochowski³⁷. A participant’s account, a later memoir and a historical study provide different kinds of evidence; none automatically supplies an impartial account of the war.

Kubala: history made visible

Sienkiewicz also studied historians’ ways of telling a story. Reviewing the first series of Ludwik Kubala’s Historical Sketches, he praised descriptions that made readers feel they were witnessing past events. He described the period as a novel that writes itself³⁸.

Yet the same review disputed Kubala’s assessment of John II Casimir: Sienkiewicz argued that the young prince’s portrait did not explain the later king’s actions³⁹.

How did he create the language of the old Commonwealth?

Sztachelska discusses stylisation through older syntax and forms of expression. She quotes Sienkiewicz’s letter to Mścisław Godlewski of 1 September 1880, in which he emphasised the flow of language, reading Latin authors and old translations, and reconstructing the concepts familiar to people of the period⁴⁰. This earlier statement about his craft helps explain the later Trilogy; it was not a declaration written specifically for The Deluge.

While reading, distinguish the narrator’s language from the characters’ speech. Kmicic’s oath, Radziwiłł’s persuasion and Zagłoba’s verbal manoeuvres perform different tasks in the action. Their voices can be compared in the banquet and imprisoned-officers scenes⁴¹.

Why write “to strengthen hearts”?

Sienkiewicz’s best-known declaration closes Pan Wołodyjowski, the third part of the cycle:

Na tym kończy się ten szereg książek pisanych w ciągu kilku lat i w niemałym trudzie – dla pokrzepienia serc.

The epilogue’s final sentence says that this series of books, written over several years and with considerable effort, was intended “to strengthen hearts”⁴². It refers to the whole Trilogy and was published after The Deluge. The familiar Polish wording ku pokrzepieniu serc is a shortened formulation; the cited text uses dla.

His 1889 lecture O powieści historycznej (On the Historical Novel) also helps explain his purpose. He defended the possibility of reconstructing people of the past from the evidence they left. He assigned imagination the task of bringing figures to life and filling gaps between known events in a manner consistent with the period’s plausibility⁴³.

The National Museum in Kielce dates the Warsaw lecture to 9 April 1889 and explains its polemical context in debates about historical fiction⁴⁴. The statement illuminates the author’s artistic conception after completing the Trilogy.

The seventeenth century seen from partitioned Poland

Tadeusz Bujnicki reads The Deluge through two contexts: seventeenth-century warfare and the situation of Polish readers under the partitions. In his interpretation, survival after catastrophe sustains historical memory and hope within a community deprived of its state. He also connects the language of historical discussion with censorship⁴⁵.

Themes

The main axis of the plot is Kmicic's path from the oath he swore to Janusz Radziwiłł¹² to serving the king under an assumed name and the confession of his true name before John II Casimir⁴⁶. The background is a country in which the Lithuanian hetman makes an agreement with the Swedes¹² and the nobility flock to the Swedish commandants to swear allegiance to a new master⁴⁷. Sienkiewicz devotes eight chapters of the second volume to the defence of the Jasna Góra monastery¹³ (see Father Kordecki).

Henryk Markiewicz writes in the PSB of the Trilogy as a whole that Sienkiewicz drew his material from „starannie opanowanych źródeł i opracowań historycznych” ("carefully mastered historical sources and studies"), but used them freely in matters of detail. He brought to the fore episodes of military, or at least moral, victory¹. In the world of the Trilogy, Markiewicz writes, a model of the Pole came to life whose traits were patriotic self-sacrifice, valour in war and knightly honour. Alongside them stood „powierzchowna religijność, upodobanie w brawurowym geście, przewaga żywiołowych emocji nad krytyczną refleksją” ("superficial religiosity, a liking for the bravura gesture, the predominance of elemental emotions over critical reflection")¹. The novel's relation to historical fact was examined by the historian Adam Kersten in his book Sienkiewicz – "Potop" – historia (1966)⁴⁸.

How does the novel lead its reader through the war?

The narrator does not restrict the story to what Kmicic sees. Political information also arrives through conversations and messages: Stanisław Skrzetuski reports the capitulation at Ujście, while Anusia brings news of the Tyszowce Confederation⁴⁹⁵⁰. Readers therefore encounter the war through a changing circulation of knowledge. Ask who knows an event’s outcome, who has only a rumour and who must act without a full understanding of the situation.

The double identity Andrzej Kmicic–Babinicz creates a difference between what readers and other characters know. Revealing his identity to the king and the later public reading of a royal letter mark separate stages in recovering his reputation⁵¹⁵². Reading can distinguish an actual change in the hero’s conduct from the moment when others accept it.

Oleńka participates in the conflict by judging Kmicic’s actions. Her opposition to violence and rejection of him after the burning of Wołmontowicze precede his service under a new name⁵³. The ending returns to this personal judgement after his services have been made public⁵². This structure invites a reading of the romance alongside questions of responsibility, rather than simply as a series of meetings interrupted by wartime adventures.

Are Kmicic and all his adventures historical?

The fictional Andrzej Kmicic is a literary creation. The PSB describes Samuel Kmicic, the historical figure identified as his prototype¹¹. A prototype’s existence does not authenticate the novel’s romance, the assumed name Babinicz or the hero’s subsequent adventures.

The siege of Jasna Góra belongs to the history of the war; Babinicz’s participation belongs to the plot. The destruction of the gun offers a particularly clear example: Kmicic destroys it in the novel, whereas Kordecki’s account describes a heavy gun bursting⁵⁴²⁷. The separate Jasna Góra guide compares documents, novel and adaptation in detail.

Historical names require the same care. Janusz Radziwiłł, Bogusław Radziwiłł and John II Casimir existed, but conversations with them in the novel are Sienkiewicz’s text. A person’s biography and their function within the plot require different questions and evidence.

The day he finished: 21 August 1886

Sienkiewicz completed the novel at Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna on 21 August 1886. Writing that day to Jadwiga Janczewska, he reported having added “The End” an hour earlier; the final thirteen sheets remained to be checked and sent. He described exhaustion and the absence of the satisfaction he had expected³³⁵⁵.

Finishing the manuscript, ending newspaper publication and issuing the book were separate moments. The calendar dates the final newspaper instalments to September 1886: 2 September in Czas and 10 September in Słowo²⁵.

What survives of the manuscript?

Trilogy manuscripts are held at the Ossolineum. The Pamięć Polski collection record explains that the sheets were used by typesetters and retain evidence of printing work and revisions⁵⁶.

Agnieszka Kuniczuk shows that the drafts also document the planning of instalments. Sienkiewicz marked their endings in red pencil and added the instruction “end of instalment”. The manuscript therefore permits study of both textual development and preparation for newspaper publication⁵⁷.

Reading the book after watching the film

Begin with four passages: the duel in volume I, chapter VII; the Kėdainiai banquet in volume I, chapter XIII; the destruction of the cannon in volume II, chapter XVII; and the royal letter in volume III, chapter XXX^58596052. This numbering follows Wolne Lektury’s three-volume text. In each passage compare narration, conversation, motivation and what a film can convey through images or sound.

A departure from the book is not automatically a historical error: rain in the screen duel is a staging choice applied to a literary scene⁶¹. A different question arises when Babinicz’s fictional exploit at Jasna Góra is compared with an account of a heavy cannon bursting²⁷. Our film guide examines production, adaptation and historical evidence in detail; the Jasna Góra comparison explores the siege documents.

What was Sienkiewicz’s Nobel Prize awarded for?

Sienkiewicz received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905. Its official motivation is “because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer”⁶². The prize recognised his writing, including The Deluge. Its motivation does not single out one book.

NobelPrize.org’s discussion of nomination records notes a proposal to share the 1905 prize between Sienkiewicz and Eliza Orzeszkowa⁶³. Sienkiewicz ultimately received the prize alone⁶².

Reception

The Trilogy brought Sienkiewicz the greatest popularity of any Polish writer of his day. One sign of it was a gift of 15,000 roubles from an anonymous donor who signed himself „Michał Wołodyjowski”. Sienkiewicz did not accept it and passed it to the Academy of Learning (Akademia Umiejętności) for a scholarship for writers and artists suffering from tuberculosis¹. After 1945 Sienkiewicz became an author published in mass print runs. By 1994 The Deluge had reached 3,319,000 copies, more than With Fire and Sword (2,607,000) and fewer than The Knights of the Cross (Krzyżacy; 3,580,000)¹. Markiewicz observes that Sienkiewicz's vision of Polish history shaped popular consciousness to a considerable degree and was only rarely challenged (Olgierd Górka)¹.

In 1974 the novel was adapted for the screen by Jerzy Hoffman²⁶: see The Deluge (1974).

Read the novel and consult the evidence

The complete Polish text is freely available at Wolne Lektury. The 1886 first edition in Polona allows comparison of volume divisions. The Kuryer Poznański scan of 25 December 1884 lets readers check the Poznań newspaper’s name and publication date themselves.

The NPLP calendar of his life and work reproduces letters, while On the Historical Novel sets out his views of the genre. Footnotes on this page identify whether a claim comes from the novel, correspondence, an institutional document or scholarship.

Explore the characters

Read separate profiles of Kmicic, Oleńka, Zagłoba and Wołodyjowski. The literary portraits of Janusz and Bogusław Radziwiłł link to separate historical biographies. Each profile identifies episodes in the novel and the actor in the adaptation.