50 Zlotys Vladislaus IV

Władysław IV Vasa, for whom this issue is named, ruled Poland-Lithuania from 1632 to 1648 and spent much of his reign attempting to drag the Commonwealth into a grand anti-Ottoman crusade that the Sejm repeatedly refused to fund. His frustrated militarism and the nobility's stranglehold on the treasury were direct precursors to the catastrophic wars that would hollow out the Commonwealth within a decade of his death.