Glinski rebellion

[2][3] In February 1507, the Seimas in Vilnius decided to demand the return of the territory it had lost in the previous war with Muscovy, and dispatched an ambassador to Moscow with an ultimatum.

Military actions in the first phase of the war (prior to the entry of the rebels into the conflict) were rather passive and did not bring about a desired result for either of the parties.

[10][11][12] Despite the chronicles' description and chronology, historians note that Zabrzeziński fell out of favor due to the fact he was an active supporter of the ratification of the Union of Mielnik, which was thwarted in the Brest Seimas.

[15] According to Herberstein, who called Glinski and Konstanty Ostrogski two especially famous people of the Grand Duchy, After the king's death, the hatred which had been buried in the mind of Ivan [Jan], on account of having been deprived of his palatinate through his antagonist's influence, again awoke.

The consequence was, that the latter, with his accomplices and friends, was charged with treason to King Sigismund, who had succeeded Alexander, was slandered by certain of his rivals, and declared to be a traitor to his country.

Mengli Giray sent Sigismund a message demanding the restoration of Glinski as the Court Marshal and, in the case of non-fulfilment, threatened to break the "brotherhood" (military alliance).

But, according to the American historian Stephen Christopher Rowell, Drzewicki always considered Laski as the cause of all unrest under Sigismund's reign, believing him to be a kind of "evil genius".

[16] According to Herberstein, Glinski "incensed at the indignity offered to him, he told the king that he should resent such infamous conduct, and that he himself would one day live to repent it".

[17][18][19] Glinski began to spread rumors that authorities intended to proselytize all Orthodox Christians to Catholicism and that those who refused to convert would be executed, even though he himself was a Catholic.

[25] Having dealt with his main enemy, Glinski, who according to Polish historian Maciej Stryjkowski had 2,000 soldiers,[26] sent units throughout Lithuania and made an attempt to take the Kaunas Castle.

Mengli Giray's greatest enemy Great Horde Khan Sheikh Ahmed was imprisoned in the Kaunas Castle and Sigismund alleged that Glinski intended to release him.

[28][29] But the Glinski family didn't trust the grand duke's envoy, insisting that one of the most influential Lithuanian nobles, Albertas Goštautas, was sent in his place and stating that they would wait for his arrival until March 12.

According to Herberstein, Wapowski, Stryjkovsky, and the Lithuanian and Samogitian Chronicle [ru], an initiative to start negotiations with Moscow came from the Glinski family, who even before the murder of Zabrzeziński sent a messenger with a letter to the Grand Duke.

This version is supported by the fact that Glinski's negotiations with Moscow are not mentioned in Sigismund's letter to Mengli Giray dated February 21, 1508.

[23] Russian Vremennik, a highly detailed source on the progress of the rebellion, with a protograph created in the middle of the 16th century, contains a different version of the events.

[29][31] This source reports about the Moscow envoy Mitya Gouba Moklokov's arrival to the Glinski family with a charter of invitation to the service of Vasily III with their ancestral lands.

He regards as faithful the descriptions of events of spring — summer 1508 from the chronicles of Decius and Wapowski, from the Russian Vremennik and from Sigismund's and Mikhail's letters.

Vasily allegedly unsuccessfully besieged Zhytomyr and Ovruch and urged the local Orthodox nobility to join the rebellion, promising that when Mikhail becomes the Grand Duke, he would revive the "Kiev monarchy".

Stryjkowski noted the legend that, being unmarried, Glinski intended to force the widow Princess Anastasia of Slutsk [ru] to marry him.

The peace called for a return to status quo ante bellum and the Lithuanian recognition of Moscow's gains of the previous wars.

[48] The vast land possessions of the rebels in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were subject to confiscation, although Sigismund I had already begun to distribute them to his supporters back in April 1508.

[34] At the end of 1508, Mikhail Glinski moved to Moscow, where he received Maloyaroslavets as a fiefdom and Borovsk in kormlenie [ru] ("feeding").

[45] According to historian Mikhail Crom, the route followed by the rebellion shows that Glinski had no plan for the war and rushed from one shady enterprise to another.

[57] Athanasy Yarushevichru [ru], on the other hand, called the rebellion "the great disorder of the masses" and an "all-Russian affair",[58] but this evaluation was strongly disputed by Liubavsky.

[64][65] This concept follows the interpretation proposed by Yarushevich — that the Glinski rebellion is considered a "revolt of the masses", aimed at the Russian people's liberation from the authority of Catholic Lithuania.

Zimin believed that people sympathized with the idea of the rebellion, but "the princes did not want to use the popular movement of Belarusians and Ukrainians for reunification with Russia", leading to the failure of the uprising.

These connotations appear only in the writings of the late 1560s-1590s, when ethnic and interconfessional differences in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania sharply worsened and the past was reinterpreted in the form of Orthodoxy-Catholicism confrontation.

[71] Stephen Rowell believed that Glinski not opposed to the monarch, whose vassal he considered himself to be at the beginning of the rebellion, but to Zabrzeziński and his supporters directly.

[72] According to Belarusian historian Makar Shnip, in the early 16th century political groupings made up on an ethnoreligious basis did not exist in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Belarusian historians consider the rebellion itself to have been spontaneous, aimed at achieving Glinski's personal goals, with no specific sociopolitical ideas.