the Sermons, Skarga discusses what he sees as the problems of the ailing Commonwealth: lack of patriotism, internal quarrels, tolerance of heretics, the king's relative powerlessness, perverse laws (a critique of the nobility's Golden Freedoms), and immorality. Another notable aspect of the book is its focus on the desperate plight of the serfs (the peasants). Importance Janusz Tazbir, in his 1978 biography of Skarga, noted that "there already is an extensive literature on Skarga". He attributed this to Skarga's being the most famous figure of the Polish Counter-Reformation, which gained him his initial fame; and, later, to his rediscovered reform proposals which, while controversial in his time, gained him renown during the Partitions of Poland and have been well regarded since. His popularity as the "patriotic seer" who predicted the Partitions reached a zenith in the second half of the 19th century, when some historians, such as Ignacy Chrzanowski, went so far as to speak of "the cult of Skarga." Tazbir states that Skarga's writings are valued primarily for their advocacy of political and socioeconomic reforms, rather than for their theological content. From the Polish Enlightenment of the middle of the 18th century onward, his works, penned in Polish rather than in Latin, have also been increasingly valued for their style and contributions to the development of the written Polish language and of Polish literature. Skarga has been positively viewed not only by historians but by poet Adam Mickiewicz and painter Jan Matejko; the former called Skarga's Lives a "most poetic Polish masterpiece", and the latter created a well-known painting, Kazanie Skargi (Skarga's Sermon). Over the centuries, Skarga became a character in a number of other artistic works, including a novel by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, though he has never been the chief character in any literary work longer than a poem. In 1936, on the 400th anniversary of Skarga's birth, with the endorsement of Poland's President Ignacy Mościcki and the Polish government, the Polish writer Zofia Kossak-Szczucka proposed that Skarga be beatified. Nearly eight decades later, Skarga's cause for beatification was inaugurated on 12 June 2013. In 2012, on the 400th anniversary of his death, the Polish Sejm declared that year the "Year of the Reverend Piotr Skarga". The decision caused considerable controversy: a Calvinist polemicist Kazimierz Bem called it in the newspaper Rzeczpospolita "an example of deep disdain Poland holds for any of its minorities." The newspaper carried a