This article marks the 400th anniversary of a series of bloody battles which were fought from 2 September until 9 October 1621 between the Polish-Lithuanian army and the invading Ottoman armies led by Sultan Osman II. Intent on defeating Poland and conquering all of Europe, the 17-year-old sultan gathered well over 100,000 troops, probably the largest fighting force ever assembled on one battlefield. The campaign culminated in the Battle of Chocim (Khotyn), in which the Turks lost approximately 40 thousand men (one third of the invasion force). As a result Osman II was compelled to back off and sign a peace treaty which brought to an end his plans of expansion. What turned the fortunes of war in favour of Poland was a conjunction of two factors, the indomitable fighting spirit of the soldiers in the field and, no less important, the use of modern defence tactics under the agile command of Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. While the victory at Chocim aroused great interest not just in Poland, nowhere was its significance given so much weight as in Rome. Pope Gregory XV issued a breve Victoriarum gloria and instituted a special thanksgiving service (officium gratiarum) to be celebrated in Catholic churches worldwide. The article looks again at these, better known reactions to the Polish-Ottoman war of 1620–1621 before exploring a raft of diaries and memoirs, in manuscript and printed, and various types of publications, including leaflets describing the battles, published in various languages in Poland and all over Europe. However, at the centre of this study is the poetic legacy of the war. The poems in which the war is remembered and celebrated focus their praise either on Hetman Chodkiewicz or Prince Władysław Waza (the future king of Poland), who was also present at Chocim. The article examines this duality primarily in the poems of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Samuel Twardowski, Wacław Potocki, Ignacy Krasicki and the Croatian Baroque poet Ivan Gundulić.