History can be a lot of fun! We prove it in the musical “Battle for the Throne” about the elective kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The show is staged in the form of a television talent show. Each monarch performs a catchy song presenting their life and achievements. The songs are styled according to the musical traditions of the countries the kings came from. Thus, Sigismund III of the Swedish Vasa dynasty sings a piece inspired by ABBA, while Augustus II the Strong from Saxony combines heavy metal sounds reminiscent of Rammstein with a Baroque aria. In the finale – just like in the Eurovision Song Contest – the audience votes for the most popular king and the best song!

Battle for the Throne

Is it a coincidence that the first elective king of Poland was also the most attractive candidate? Elections are a show, a marketplace of promises and a beauty contest. You have to outshine your rivals, win the battle of attractiveness, and put on a performance. They are like a festival in which the winner is decided by the audience.

It is a political Eurovision.

What if our elective historical monarchs took part in such a festival? What if they were gathered on one stage and made to compete for the audience’s approval? What if each of them had to perform one number in which they had to shine and outshine the others? This question has consequences. If kings are to compete on attractiveness, then our publicistic tendency to mock historical figures must disappear.

Let us not think of Henry Valois as a faithless husband who left us right after the wedding night, but focus on his eccentricity and androgynous charm. Báthory should be a hero from vampiric Transylvania, and Sigismund III should be appreciated for his reason, his Warsaw connection, and… his artistic talent. Let us love Władysław IV for being down-to-earth, look with admiration at John II Casimir as a phoenix rising from the ashes after successive defeats. Let us love Poland as John III Sobieski loved Marysieńka, and Augustus the Strong should impress us with his 365 children. In Stanisław August Poniatowski, let us see a Polish version of the bittersweet adventurer Casanova.

We also need a jury – let us invite the mothers, wives, sisters and mistresses of the kings. Preferably foreign women, to ensure proper distance: Bona, Anna Vasa, Marysieńka and Catherine the Great. And as presenters, let us add seventeenth-century showmen Piotr Skarga and Augustyn Kordecki.

This is our fairy-tale recipe for a musical elective talent show.

In the end, a reflection: democracy is quite an entertaining game, but also a dangerous one. As our “Fathers of the Show” sing just before the finale: “We have much to worry about, fellow countrymen: vote wrong – and Poland may disappear from the map.”

Jacek Mikołajczyk