Žanna Niekraševič-Karotkaja. The 1564 Ula battle in the monuments of Latin literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The article envisages the 16th century Latin monuments devoted to the description of the Ula (Čašniki) Battle on January 26, 1564 and its political consequences. The first of these monuments – epinicium “The victory over the Muscovites… gained by God’s grace…” (Divina gratia… victoria de Moschis…) appeared as early as in 1564. Its author was a German humanist Iohannes Mylius, who worked as a court teacher in the court of Hryhory Chadkievič. In the 60-ies, when Muscovite troops resumed onsets on the Ula castle, Petrus Royzius wrote a series of epigrams in which he stressed the need for unification of all the military forces for the liberation of Ula and other GDL towns. The Ula battle was mentioned in a number of other distinctive military events of the 16th century in the “Eulogy of seizure of Polack” (Panegyricus in excidium Polocense) by Basilius Hyacinthius (Padua, 1580). However, the most detailed presentation of this art event was carried out in a heroic epic by Ioannes Radvanus “Radzivilliada or about the life and exploits of Mikalaj Radzivil” (Radivilias sive De vita et rebus… Nicolai Radivili) (Vilnius, 1592). In general, many authors of Latin lyric-epic works of the 16th century represented the victory at Ula as a landmark and long-awaited event, which denied the myth of the invincibility of the army of Ivan the Terrible and allowed to reevaluate the prospects of the Livonian War.