Two Letters of Mengli-Giray I to Jerzy Mikołajewicz Radziwiłł, the Voivode of Kiev (1512–1513)

Research objectives: This article offers an edition and a source study of the letters of the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray I to Jerzy Mikołajewicz Radziwiłł (Jurgis Radvila), the voivode of Kiev, written in 1512–1513. Research materials: The originals of the letters preserved in the Princes Czartoryski Library in Cracow and the collection of Ignacy Onacewicz at the Institute of Russian Lite­rature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House) in St. Petersburg, subsidiary materials, edited and unedited, from the archival and library collections of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw. Results and novelty of the research: It is established that two original letters of the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray I to Jerzy Mikołajewicz Radziwiłł (Jurgis Radvila), the voivode of Kiev (1511–1514), are preserved in the Czartoryski Library in Cracow (Ms. 2893) and Ignacy Onacewicz’s collection in the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (the Pushkin House) in St. Petersburg. It is demonstrated that they were written on March 14th, 1512, and September 21st, 1513, and their contents are connected with the international relations of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Both of them were kept in the Radziwiłł family archive until the nineteenth century. The texts of both letters are published for the first time, accompanied with detailed descriptions of the originals, a contextualization of them as sources, and provided with commentary.