Królowa Anna Habsburżanka (1592–1598) w zwierciadle swoich listów. Kilka uwag o znaczeniu jej korespondencji z matką, arcyksiężną Marią Bawarską.
Anna of Austria, Queen of Poland (1592–1598) , in the mirror of her letters. Some remarks on the importance of her correspondence with her mother, Archduchess Maria Anna of Bavaria.

Summary/Abstract: The article is an invitation to a discussion about the image of Anna of Austria, Queen of Poland, the first wife of King Sigismund III Vasa, created in the early seventeenth century by the Queen’s confessor Fabian Quadrantinus, and reinforced by the Austrian historian Walter Leitsch, the author of a four-volume work on the life at the court of the first Vasa. In the author’s opinion, the image is over-idealised – Quadrantinus created a picture of an almost holy woman, while Leitsch promoted a view of her as the most influential adviser to King Sigismund III. An indepth analysis of the correspondence makes it possible to verify both of these perceptions. Besides, the authoress postulates a change in the approach to the Queen’s preserved letters to her mother, Archduchess Maria Anna of Bavaria – not to regard them solely as a repository of insight into the life of the royal family, but to see them as an egodocument – as a record of practices and experiences, a testimony to a “conversation by letters” lasting nearly six years. This text only indicates new research perspectives, encouraging us to look unconventionally at the relationship between mother and daughter, and prompting us to reflect on the role Anna of Austria and her Polish-Lithuanian courtiers played within the archduchess’s system of information gathering and network of correspondents.

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