Father Kordecki

In the novel

Father Kordecki appears in the second volume, when Kmicic arrives at the monastery under the name Babinicz and warns of the Swedes' intentions. The prior receives him, hears him out, and then puts his news before the senior fathers and the nobility gathered in the monastery¹. At this council he says:

Nie własną siłą on tę Rzeczpospolitą podbił, sami jej synowie do tego mu dopomogli; ale jakkolwiek naród nasz nisko upadł, jakkolwiek w grzechu brodzi, to przecie i w grzechu samym jest pewna granica, której nie śmiałby przestąpić.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, The Deluge (Potop)¹

(Our translation: "It was not by his own strength that he conquered this Commonwealth; her own sons helped him to it. But however low our nation has fallen, however deep it wades in sin, there is yet, even in sin itself, a certain limit which it would not dare to cross.")

The next day, together with Zamoyski, the sword-bearer (miecznik) of Sieradz, and Piotr Czarniecki, he inspects the walls, and in the evening he leads the crowd beneath the walls in singing the Angelus (Anioł Pański)². During the siege he is, in the novel, above all a spiritual leader and a negotiator. The negotiations with Miller are meant, according to the narrator, to gain time³. When a nobleman sent from the Swedish camp brings false news of John Casimir's abdication, the prior orders him to repeat it with his fingers on the crucifix. When the newcomer answers „Umywam ręce…” ("I wash my hands…"), Kordecki concludes: „Jak Piłat!” ("Like Pilate!")⁴. In the same chapter he nips in the bud a plot by part of the garrison, who wanted to come to terms with the Swedes⁴. The defence, directed by the monks and the nobility, is described in chapters XII–XIX of the second volume⁵.

Historical basis

The character has a historical counterpart: Augustyn Kordecki (1603–1673), prior of Jasna Góra during the siege of 1655 and author of the Nova Gigantomachia⁶⁷. Adam Kersten lists The Deluge (Potop) among the best-known literary transpositions of Kordecki's account⁶. The course of the defence according to the sources is described on the page Siege of Jasna Góra.

In the film

In Jerzy Hoffman's film Prior Augustyn Kordecki was played by Stanisław Jasiukiewicz, and the role was dubbed by Zygmunt Maciejewski¹⁰. Jasiukiewicz died on 27 June 1973¹¹, more than a year before the premiere of the film's first part on 2 September 1974¹⁰¹².