Shuttlecock, Andrey

Studied in Frankfurt an der Oder and Königsberg , returned from abroad as an ardent Calvinist. He was elected ambassador from the gentry of the Oshmyany Povet to the Sejm of the Commonwealth . He was the secretary of King Sigismund Augustus . In this position, which he retained under the next kings Stefan Batoria and Sigismund Wase , Volan often served as an intermediary between the king and the gentry seymiks and traveled to the embassies in Livonia , Austria , and the Moscow state.

In Moscow, he was ambassador in 1595, together with Lev Sapieha . He took an active part in the internal political life of the country as a Sejm ambassador and writer. The feud of religious parties that flared up in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , threatening the very existence of Protestantism here, involved Volan in a polemic with defenders of Catholicism and various Protestant movements.

Protect the Protestants, and in particular Nikolai Radziwill Red , at whose court Volan lived with several other scholars of Calvinism. He issued a number of polemical works, mainly on theological issues, and participated in many disputes, among other things with Peter Skarga , Possevin , Faust Sotsin . Author of about forty works written in Latin - political and legal treatises, works on ethics and theology, letters, sermons. Volan's works were published in Vilna , Krakow , Danzig ; directed against Catholicism, especially against the Jesuits , the works were translated by the Huguenots in France , the Calvinists in Germany, and included in the Index of Banned Books .

In his writings, he sometimes touched on political and social topics, standing here on the reformist point of view that was characteristic of most Protestants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at that time. One of the most important works is De politica hominum societate ( 1572 ), which addresses issues of equality of estates, justice and freedom. Based on the works of Aristotle , Plato , Cicero , Andrei Volan argued that freedom is most consistent with human nature.

Polish scholars Yu. Ossolinsky and M. Balinsky attributed to Andrei Volan the authorship of the famous anonymous journalistic work “Conversation of the Pole with Litvin” ( Polish: Rozmowa Polaka z Litwinem ; Brest , 1555 or 1566), aimed at protecting the interests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and confronting Polish claims, expressed in the treatise of Stanislav Orekhovsky "Quincunx" (1554), whose name is translated "Pyramid". However, A. Bruckner established the authorship of A. Rotundus .

One of the streets in the Old Town of Vilnius bears the name of Volan.

• Andrius Volanas. Rinktiniai raštai / Sudarė Marcelinas Ročka ir Ingė Lukšaitė. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1996.446 p. ISBN 5-420-01277-4 .

• Volan Andrey // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• M. Baliński. “Pisma historyczne” (vol. III).
• Falcon, S.F. Volan Andrei // Thoughts and Illuminations of Belarus. Entsyklapedichny davidnіk / gal. red B. I. Sachanka. - Minsk: Belarussian encyclapedia, 1995. - S. 65-66. - 672 p. - 6000 copies. - ISBN 985-11-0016-1 . (belor.)

• Andriejus Volanas (link unavailable) (lit.)
• Andrei Volan (inaccessible link) (belor.)