Michael Wiśniowiecki

▪ king of Poland

Polish in full  MichaŁ Korybut Wiśniowiecki 

born July 31, 1640, Lwów, Pol.

died Nov. 10, 1673, Lwów

      king of Poland (1669–73), whose reign was marked by struggles between the pro-Habsburg and pro-French political factions.

      A native Pole and descendant of Korybut, brother of King Władysław II Jagiełło, Michael was freely elected by the unanimous vote of the Polish nobility; but he was chosen chiefly for the merit of his father, Jérémi Wiśniowiecki, a great border magnate who had victoriously kept down the Cossacks, and he proved to be a passive tool in the hands of the Habsburgs. In view of this, the French party rallied round Jan Sobieski, a military commander of rising fame. The dissensions between the two camps cost Poland a new defeat at the hands of the united Turks and Cossacks. Sealed by the Treaty of Buczacz (Buchach; 1672), by which all Polish Ukraine came under Turkish suzerainty, this defeat was wiped out only by a brilliant victory of Sobieski's at Khotin (1673), which also, after King Michael's early death, carried him to the throne (as John III Sobieski) against an Austrian candidate.

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