MICZYŃSKI, SEBASTIAN°

MICZYŃSKI, SEBASTIAN ° (late 16^th–early 17^th century), anti-Jewish agitator and professor of philosophy at Cracow University. In 1618 Miczyński published a venomous antisemitic lampoon entitled Zwierciadło korony polskiej ("The Mirror of the Polish Crown"). It is a catalog of demagogic denunciations accusing the Jews of all the misfortunes that had befallen the kingdom of Poland and its people. Through reports of *blood libels and accusations that they had desecrated icons and profaned Catholic festivals, the Jews are presented as the implacable enemies of Christians. Miczyński also presents the Jews as traitors and spies in the pay of Turkey, and lays special emphasis on the wealth of the Jewish merchants and craftsmen who compete with their Christian neighbors, driving the guilds and towns to ruin. The pamphlet seriously disturbed the Jews of *Cracow. When riots broke out in the town, the parnasim of the community appealed to King Sigismund iii Vasa. The king promptly prohibited the circulation of the pamphlet, but in spite of his order it was reprinted in a second and enlarged edition during the same year; it was published for a third time in 1648. Miczyński's work is an important link in the chain of Polish antisemitic literature.

bibliography:

K. Bartoszewicz, Antysemityzm w literaturze polskiej 15–17 wieków (1914); M. Bałaban, Historja Żydów w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu, 1 (1931), 171–7.

[Arthur Cygielman]