Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki

Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki was elected king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania in 1669. His short reign was weakened by factional conflict and military pressure from the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the loss of Kamianets-Podilskyi and the humiliating Treaty of Buchach.

Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki also held the offices or ranks of starosta of Przemyśl. Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki belonged to the House of Wiśniowiecki and operated within Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki was born in Bilyi Kamin and died in Lviv.

Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Fire in the Steppe places King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki within the Commonwealth’s political weakness as Ottoman pressure and Tatar warfare threaten the southern frontier. The fictional adventures of Wołodyjowski and his companions unfold under a monarch whose contested authority and inability to unite the nobility form part of the background to the loss of Kamianets-Podilskyi and the larger war in which John Sobieski rises to prominence.