Adam Kisiel's ancestors can be found among the former Ruthenian nobility. However, in the times of Adam Kisiel, most of the Ruthenian nobility was almost completely Polonized.
He considered himself a Pole, which he expressed in the following words at the Convocation Sejm in 1687:[13]
I am a Polish nobleman and a senator (...) I have no connection with the Cossack rebellion, because there are no noblemens there (...).[14][12]
Adam Kisiel was a member of the noble family Kisiel, which used its own coat of arms, sometime called Światołdycz.[15] They were a Ruthenian family,[16] originally from Volyn.[17] His grandfather, Gniewosz Kisiel, was a colonel in the service of the Polish king Sigismund I the Old, and lost his life in the battle of Orsza.[8] His father, Grzegorz, was a podsędek of Włodzimierz.[18] He signed his name as Kisiel Niskinicki.[8] Adam's brother was Mikołaj Kisiel (d. 1651), a chorążyofNowogród Siewierski.[8] Adam Kisiel was married to Anastazja Krystyna Bohuszewicz. She was probably a daughter of Filion Bohuszewicz Hulkiewicz, widow after Butowicz. The couple was childless.[8]
Adam Kisiel according to the older historiography was born around 1580. After Tadeusz Jan Lubomirski in 1905 published his work Adam Kisiel wojewoda kijowski, where is contained information that on the grave inscription of Adam Kisiel is mentioned that he died as 53 years old, historians stated that he was born in 1600.[18]
Kisiel persuaded king Władysław IV Vasa to reinstate the Orthodox hierarchy and he acted as an intermediary between the Royal Court, General Sejm, and Cossacks.[19]
During the Khmelnytsky Uprising he was one of the most prominent members of the negotiations and pro-Cossack factions among the szlachta. In the very beginning of the Uprising he sent an Eastern Orthodox monk, Petroni Łaska, to try to calm down the Cossacks and begin negotiations. The Sejm resolution of 22 July 1648 chose him, Aleksander Sielski, podkomorzy poznański, Franciszek Dubrawski, podkomorzy przemyski and Teodor Obuchowicz, podkomorzy mozyrski, to negotiate with Khmelnytsky. The negotiations ended in failure by February 1649.
^The Cambridge history of Poland, Vol. 1, 1950, p. 512.
^Tereškinas, Artūras (2005). Imperfect Communities: Identity, Discourse and Nation in the Seventeenth-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. p. 40.
^Thomas Bremer (ed.), Religion and the conceptual boundary in Central and Eastern Europe, London 2008, p. 51.
