Black Princess Galszka Ostrozka

The name of Princess Galszka (Yelyzaveta) Ostrozka will always bring to mind such things as beauty, intelligence, wealth, benefaction, and... tragic destiny. So what kind of a person was she, inheritor of the riches of the famous Ostrozky clan, an art patron, and, at the same time, an extremely unhappy woman referred to as the black princess and black widow in legends?

A granddaughter of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky (with a record of dozens of victories over the Tartars and a brilliant one over the Muscovites in 1514 near Orsha. For details see The Day No. 36, November 25, 2003) and a daughter of Prince Illia Ostrozky and Beata Kostelecka, she was born in 1539 on Saint Elizabeth’s Day. According to the custom, the infant was baptized after the saint: hence the Polish diminutive Galszka.

Galszka’s father, Illia Ostrozky, was looking forward to having a child, but he died under mysterious circumstances three months before the baby was born. Once a widow, Beata, who had been brought up at the Krakow royal court, inherited huge estates under the testament her husband had signed just three days before his death. It is not only his wife’s material well-being and the legitimacy of the child she was expecting that Prince Illia cared about. High on the testament’s list was appointing guardians for Beta and her future child: Illia requested the Polish King Sigismund-Augustus and his Italian-born wife Bona Sforza to take up this mission. Even before Beata married Prince Illia Ostrozky, she was under the monarchic family’s guardianship. Galszka became the owner of many towns, villages, castles, and manors of the Ostrozkys, the uncrowned kings of Volhynia. This wealth admittedly was the main cause of the princess’s tragic destiny.

Representatives of many magnate families tried to establish a relationship with the powerful Ostrozky clan. The 12-year-old Galszka was a very lucrative choice: marrying her was of great sociopolitical importance. All were, naturally, interested in getting not only a beautiful young wife but also a rich dowry and a high-profile title. This is what Martyn Zborovsky, Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, Mykola Malenky, Dmytro Sanhushko et al. counted on. Yet, Sigismund-Augustus did not wish any of the Polish, Lithuanian or Ukrainian magnates to marry his son off to Galszka. This is why he forced Princess Beata to promise that the girl would not be given in marriage without his personal consent. Things would have gone well had it not been for the ambitiousness of Beata and Galszka’s uncle, Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky. The latter dreamed that his niece would marry the Magistrate of Cherkasy and Kaniv, Prince Dmytro Sanhushko.

The mother, who at first supported her brother, Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn, then changed her plans, which was small wonder. Beata, a nervous, impulsive, and unbalanced woman (as her contemporaries claimed), continued to look for a lucrative partner to suit her daughter. But could she have foreseen that the dashing Prince Dmytro Sanhushko, in love with Galszka, would leave Cherkasy and rush headlong to the Ostrozky family castle in order to enforce the fulfillment of the already-signed nuptial contract? Did Beata expect her 13-year-old daughter to go through a wedding rite in the Ostroh church immediately after the castle has been seized by Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky’s and Dmytro Sanhushko’s men?

In all probability, neither craftiness nor maternal intuition could help Beata Kostelecka save her daughter from a marriage she viewed as undesirable. So Beata, successfully playing the role of a hurt and cheated mother, sent the king a complaint against Sanhushko and then went to Krakow “in search of justice.”

The king’s reaction was a foregone conclusion: his will was not implemented — in fact it was flouted. Both Dmytro Sanhusjko and Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky were taken to court and, although neither of them showed up, the judges passed an extremely harsh sentence: Dmytro was to be deprived of his honor, estates, and put to death, and Galszka’s uncle was stripped of guardianship rights. Warned about the court ruling, the newlyweds fled to Bohemia to hide at the Rudecky Castle owned by Jan Tarnavsky, V.- K. Ostrozky’s father-in-law. But was it easy to flee when about 200 noblemen and their servants immediately set off in hot pursuit of them?

Let us recall that one of Galszka’s “eligible young men” was Martyn Zborovsky. It is clear why it was he who, together with his father, led the pursuers, caught up with and savagely beat up Sanhushko, aided by just a few servants, in Lypky. The death of the Cherkasy and Kaniv magistrate in February 1554 in the Czech city of Jaromir and the widowhood of Galszka (at the age of fourteen) is only act two in this almost Shakespearean drama.

The king still cared about the girl’s destiny or, to be more exact, about the fantastic wealth of the Ostrozky family’s senior branch (Vasyl-Kostiantyn was sixteen years Illia’s junior), so he wanted to marry her off again. The “role” of the bridegroom was assigned to the old widower Count Lukasz Gorka, the wojewoda of Berest and Kuyav. Galszka got married for the second time... However, the princess’s mother opposed the king’s choice and negotiated with Prince Semen Slutsky. In 1559, he fled, together with Galszka, to a Lviv Dominican monastery. The 20-year-old woman was wed a third time...

Beata failed to take into account an important factor: Galszka’s second husband was safe and sound, enjoying the wholehearted support of the king. The monastery was besieged and Galszka was forcibly carried to the Szamotuly estate (Poznan wojewodstwo), where she spent fourteen years in complete isolation at a medieval castle. It is here that the “black princess” legend arose. Word had it that the window of a castle tower often showed the figure of a black-attired princess. Galszka led an ascetic way of life and communicated with nobody but her servants. The castle was also rarely visited by its owner Lukasz Gorka, the Poznan wojewoda at the time. It was not until his death in 1573 that the 33-year-old princess left the Szamotuly castle for Dubno, her father’s ancestral manor.

The Polish chronicles of those times, as well as eighteenth and nineteenth century historical works, occasionally mention Galszka’s metal illness: she allegedly went insane and quietly lived in Dubno, supported by her uncle Vasyl-Kostiantyn and cousin Janusz Ostrozki. Yet, we have found some post-1573 documentary evidence that Galszka was directly engaged in keeping the household going and testified as a witness in court. She was clearly aware of what she was doing. Further proof of this is the testament the princess wrote in Turow on March 16, 1579. Under the testament, Galszka not only divided the property between the family and the servants but also allocated enormous funds (“six thousand Lithuanian groszy”) for establishing and keeping up “the hospital and the academy of Ostroh.” She was justly called founder of Eastern Europe’s first higher educational institution.

Galszka Ostrozka died in late December 1582, having just turned 43... The breathtaking somersaults of the Volhynian lady’s life brought forth many legends. The “black princess’s” destiny attracted the attention of many Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, and Czech historians, men of letters, and chroniclers, such as J. I. Kraszewski, O. Guagnini, A. Przezdiecki, I. Szaraniewicz, V. Antonovych, I. Stebelski, J. Wolia, J. Rolle, M. Maksymovych, S. Solovyov. I. Savchin...

Yet, it is not only Galszka’s beauty and somewhat mysterious destiny that evinces interest in today’s artists and researchers. Many of our well-to-do contemporaries should learn from the late medieval art patron where to channel their investments. It is Galszka and her uncle Vasyl-Kostiantyn who made it possible to create the Volhynian Athens, the educational and cultural center in Ostroh. Tellingly, the Ostroh Academy is having its renaissance in the now independent Ukraine, 410 years after the princess’s death.