Letter to the Tsar

[Shuixiang Xiansi] Talking about the origin of Ukrainians and Cossacks, we should introduce a famous painting from the Tsarist Russia period.

It is said that in 1676, the Ottoman Empire was invading Ukraine, but suffered a defeat on the banks of the Nieper River. The Ottoman sultan not only did not show weakness, but also sent a letter to the Cossacks who had just defeated, ordering the other side to surrender. The Cossack chief not only refused to surrender, but also humiliated the Sultan in the most vulgar tone in his reply.

The painter Repin (Илья Репин, Ilya Repin) was very interested after reading the copy of the reply, so he used his imagination to draw the funny scene when the chief wrote the letter. He imagined a group of reckless men surrounding the chief, every word you say to me, every possible way to utter the most obscene and obscene words, insisting on scolding the sultan to the point of being bloody. Everyone was overjoyed, and the chief laughed while listening. Although the real situation at the time when the chief replied to the letter can no longer be verified, this work by Repin still shows the essence of the Cossacks' disobedience to obscenity, which will be talked about by later generations.

This famous painting later attracted many interesting secondary creations. For example, after 2014, many Ukrainians were keen to "write letters to Putin", simulating the old Cossacks writing letters to Sudan. The movie Taras Bulba even recreates the scene in its entirety. This film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Gogol (Никола́й Го́голь, Nikolai Gogol), and it happens that Repin himself used the description of Gogol's novel to get a vivid impression of the Cossacks. Novels, oil paintings and movies complement each other here, which can be described as a beautiful talk handed down from generation to generation.

In a letter to a friend, Repin once marveled that after two weeks of living with the Cossacks, he found that Gogol's novel was true. He even praised: "A group of demons! No one in the world has experienced freedom, equality, and fraternity like the crowd!"

#Russian-Ukrainian War#Ukraine#Russia#Cossack#Sudan