In 1675, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, a fierce army of warriors based in the Wild Fields of Ukraine whose Koshovyi (chief) at the time was Ivan Sirko, received by courier a letter from Mehmed IV, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in which he rather grandiosely demanded that they cease all aggression and submit to him. Relations were historically fraught, but a recent spate of guerilla warfare involving the two parties, much of it initiated and won by the Cossacks, had pushed the young Sultan to breaking point. His last hope was to write a letter. Rather than accept the demands, Sirko responded with a letter of his own, co-written with his men, which in the 1880s was immortalised in the famous painting, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire, by renowned Russian artist Ilya Repin.
14 авг 2021
