About the book: 1889 / Reinhold Heidenstein (1553–1620) - German and Polish chronicler, diplomat, lawyer, historian. He studied at the Universities of Königsberg, Wittenberg and Padua. From 1582 - secretary of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and Kings of Poland Stefan Batory and Sigismund III, friend of the Crown Chancellor Jan Zamoyski. R. Heidenstein was the author of a number of outstanding historical works. Service in the Crown Chancellery gave him the opportunity to get acquainted with many documents, including secret ones. Thus, all of his works were based on official materials and remain significant sources to this day. “Notes on the Moscow War” by R. Heidenstein was preserved in the Latin original and was translated into Russian for the first time for this publication. This essay covers the last period of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible’s struggle with Poland for the possession of Livonia. This period began after the accession of Stefan Batory to the Polish throne and ended with the truce in Zapolsky Yam. The work was written on the basis of documentary sources and reports of direct participants. The author describes in detail the siege and capture of Polotsk by the troops of Stefan Batory and other military events on the Belarusian lands in 1579–1580, robberies, violence, and the horrors of war. The work makes it possible to understand the attitude of various factions of the ruling elite of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the war. It is believed that Stefan Batory and Jan Zamoyski took part in the editing and, possibly, the writing of the Notes. This work was created shortly after the end of the Livonian War and became one of the first works of R. Heidenstein.