Gabriel Wojniłłowicz

Before the Deluge

Gabriel Woyniłłowicz (also spelled Wojniłłowicz) was a professional Crown cavalry officer. He campaigned on the Commonwealth's eastern frontiers, served as an envoy to the Crimean khan in 1653, and fought at Okhmativ in January 1655. In September he led cavalry against Muscovite-Cossack troops near Buchach and covered the retreat from Horodok. His war had begun before the Swedish invasion.¹

The turn at Krosno

When part of the Crown army entered Swedish service, he briefly followed. In December he broke away. On 7 December 1655 he led cavalry into Krosno, where Aleksander Pracki was recruiting for the Swedes. Pracki was captured and executed, and the town passed to troops loyal to John Casimir. Historian Sławomir Augusiewicz argues that the attack was more than a personal quarrel over winter quarters: it mattered to the emerging resistance in Lesser Poland.¹

Later service

From January 1656 he commanded a royal Cossack-style cavalry regiment in Stefan Czarniecki's division. He fought at Prostki, in Prussia and Pomerania, and took part in the 1658 expedition to Denmark. He later fought Muscovy, including at Polonka and the Basia River. He died in 1665; an inventory of his possessions survives and gives a rare view of a seventeenth-century officer's material life.¹

Novel and film

His move from Swedish service to resistance may recall Kmicic's fictional transformation. There is no secure basis for calling him the sole or proven model for Sienkiewicz's hero, and we do not assign him a screen role in Hoffman's film.¹²