The myth of the miraculous defense in European culture

The great story of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa is constructed around legends about the miraculous defense. The miraculous defense has been a very popular myth in Poland and Europe at large. I will analyze how the legend of a miraculous defense fused with the stories connected with the image-figure of Our Lady of Częstochowa. I will also discuss how the miraculous defense fostered the idea of the image as Queen of the nation and how Mary and the painting became important symbols in the contemporary Polish imagination.

The topic of a miraculous defense of a fortress is one of the oldest European mythical stories. The description of the defense of the sacred city-temple of Delphi in the year 480 B.C., written by Herodotus, is considered to be the prototypical story about miraculous defenses. According to Herodotus, even though the defeat of Delphi seemed inevitable, a handful of men – with help from heaven – defended the city from a large Persian army. As foretold by one of the oracle's priests, a violent storm hit the besiegers and the summits of Parnassus fell on them, causing chaos and panic.

Similar stories, having spread around the ancient world and classical literature, later infiltrated the Christian imagination. The schema of a miraculous defense was frequently applied in Byzantine writings and descriptions of various wars between Christians and “pagans.”