The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan

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The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan (Ilya Repin)
The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan
Ilja Repin , 1880-1891
Oil on canvas
Russian Museum
The signature

The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan ( Russian Запорожцы пишут письмо турецкому сурецкому сурецкому султану Zaporozhye pischut pismo turezkomu sultanu ) is a painting by the Russian painter Ilya Repin .

Repin began the 2.03 × 3.58 m picture in 1880, but did not finish it until 1891. Repin has noted the dates at the bottom of the picture. Tsar Alexander III (1845–1894) bought it from him for 35,500 rubles . This was the highest sum paid at the time for a single work by a Russian painter. The painting belongs to the holdings of the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg . As part of an exhibition on the Peredwischniki , the picture was on view in the Chemnitz Art Collections (February 26 - May 28, 2012). A smaller version is in the gallery of the Baroda Museum of the Indian state of Gujarat , it was created by the founder of the museum Maharadja Sayajirao Gaekwad III . acquired for the gallery attached to the museum.

background

The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan is a history picture . An alleged scene from the year 1676 is shown. At the beginning of the Ottoman-Russian War , the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV demanded that the Zaporozhians (also: Zaporozheers or Zaporozhjer ) Cossacks ( za porohamy = "behind the rapids"), those at the bottom The course of the Dnepr lived, as well as the submission, as in 1674 the hetman of the right bank of Ukraine Petro Doroshenko had submitted. Then the Cossacks are said to have written a letter to the Sultan.

The text of the sultan's message is said to have read:

I, Sultan and Lord of the Sublime Gate , son of Muhammad, brother of the sun and the moon, grandson and governor of God on earth, ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia , Babylon , Jerusalem , of Great and Little Egypt , King of kings, Lord of lords, incomparable Knight, invincible general, hope and consolation of the Muslims, horror and great protector of the Christians, command you, Zaporozhian Cossacks, to give up voluntarily and without any resistance and no longer disturb my kingdom with your raids.
Sultan Mehmed IV
Laughing Cossack with a white sheepskin hat

According to legend, the Cossacks did something unusual for their usual customs when asked: They wrote. And shortly afterwards the Ottoman sultan is said to have held a letter in his hands that was full of insults:

You Turkish devil, brother and comrade of the accursed devil and the secretary of the incarnate Lucifer! What kind of knight are you if you can't even kill a hedgehog with your bare ass? Your army eats what the devil shits. You will have no Christian sons under you. We do not fear your army, we will fight us with you on water and on land, your mother will be fucked!
You kitchen boy from Babylon, wheel maker from Macedonia, goatherd from Alexandria, beer brewer from Jerusalem, pig keeper of large and small Egypt, pig of Armenia, Tatar billy goat, criminal from Podolia , executioner of Kamenez and fool of the whole world and underworld, plus our god's fool , Grandson of Satan incarnate and the hook of our tail. Pig's mouth, mare's ass, butcher dog, unbaptized forehead, be your mother fucked!
That's how the Zaporozhians answered you, bald man. You are not even qualified to herd Christian pigs. Now we have to end. We don't know the date because we don't have a calendar. The moon is in the sky, the year is in the book and we have the same day as you. So kiss our butts!
Signed: The camp ataman Iwan Sirko with the whole camp of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.

You can see from the Cossacks depicted how much fun they have to come up with new insults. In Repin's time, this freedom-loving, battle-hardened people was met with a great deal of sympathy. Repin was also a great admirer, he noted:

"... Everything Gogol wrote about her is true! A devil people! Nobody in the whole world has felt so deeply freedom, equality and brotherhood. "

The author and journalist Vladimir Giljarowski , whose grandfather was a Zaporozhian Cossack, served Repin as a model for the laughing Cossack with the white sheepskin hat. Dmytro Jawornyzkyj , who researched the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, served as a model for the scribe .

Emergence

Repin found out about the story in 1878 and made a composition sketch with pencil on paper, dated June 26, which is now in Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery (inventory number 767). He subsequently made further research on the subject and, during a trip to the Dnepr in 1880, made further sketches of the costumes and weapons of the Cossacks. This was followed by the first small-format version of the picture, executed in oil on canvas (67 × 87 cm). At the same time he worked on the large-format version, which was only completed in 1891.

The picture shows various nuances of happiness, from the sly smile of the writer to thunderous laughter, in the background also men with expressions of doubt or disapproval of the laughter. The exuberance of the figures is emphasized by the choice of strong colors, whereby the intense red is particularly noticeable. Thanks to a quick and impasto style, the picture appears very lively.

Painting details

  • The writer

  • Two people in the middle distance on the left

  • The camp ataman Iwan Sirko

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Cossack Letter on infoukes.com, accessed April 10, 2016
  2. ↑ The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan , accessed on April 10, 2016
  3. ↑ entry to Yavornytsky, Dmytro in Encyclopedia of Ukraine ; accessed on April 30, 2016 (English)
  • History of the Zaporogian Cossacks, Vol. 2. St. Petersburg 1895, pp. 517-518.
  • Myron B. Kuropas: The Saga of Ukraine: An Outline History . MUN Enterprises, 1961.

literature

  • Rose-Marie, Rainer Hagen: Viewing images - masterpieces in detail. Benedikt Taschen Verlag, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-8228-6384-X .
  • Peter Franke, Britta Wollenweber: Eastern Ukraine: Facets beyond the Dnieper. Forays through history and culture. Verlag Wostok , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-932916-46-5 .

Web links

Commons : The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish sultan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files