Michael Glinski

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Lvovich Glinski (known as Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky in Russian and Michał Gliński in Polish; ca. 1470—1534) was a powerful Lithuanian prince of distant Tatar extraction who was also a tutor of his nephew, Ivan the Terrible. His mother was a daughter of Ruthenian nobleman Ivan Esmanovich, a Jewish convert to Orthodox Christianity.

Member of the Gliński family which, according to the doctrine of Sarmatism, claimed descent from khan Mamai and owned Poltava, Turov, and other cities, he was brought up at the court of Emperor Maximilian. In the service of Albrecht of Saxony during the Italian Wars, he converted to Roman Catholicism. In the 1490s he returned to Lithuania, where he assumed the most powerful position at the court of Alexander the Jagiellonian. Appointed Court Marshal of Lithuania in 1500, he took part in numerous battles against the Tatars and in 1506 achieved a spectacular victory against them in the Battle of Klecko.

His secret ambition, however, was to carve out for himself a separate state composed of ancient lands of Kievan Rus. This intention was made public by his rival Janusz Zabrzeziński, a voivod of Trakai. On ascending the Lithuanian throne, Sigismund I dismissed Michael from his posts. Having heard about the news, Glinski procured Zabrzeziński's assassination and rose in armed rebellion against the king. However he was defeated and in 1508, Michał and his two brothers finally defected with their army to Muscovy, where Grand Duke Vasily III made him a boyar and later married his niece, Elena Glinskaya.

Mikhailo served with distinction in various conflicts of Russia with Lithuania and the Tatars, particularly in the taking of Smolensk in 1514. He still hoped that Vasily would make him an appanage duke, with all semblance of an independent sovereign. Upon realising that this could not be effected, he entered into secret negotiations with Sigismund in order to return to Lithuania. The conspiracy was disclosed, and Mikhailo taken to prison, where, waiting for execution, he returned to the Orthodox faith of his forefathers.

Upon Vasily's death in 1533, Elena became the regent of Muscovy for her son Ivan. She delivered her uncle from prison and made him her counsellor and Ivan's tutor. But Glinsky, jealous of the influence acquired on Elena by her lover Prince Obolensky, started to conspire against them. In August 1534 he was again taken to prison, where he died on September 24.

Court Marshals of Lithuania of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth