Zaporozhye Cossacks between Sultan Mehmed and Tsar Putin

Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844-1930), the Russian artist whose duty today is to remember that he is of Ukrainian origin (similar to the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who is also Ukrainian)

He is the most famous, and probably the highest-grossing, realist painter in the Russian plastic arts scene in the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. To him humanity owes immortal works, among them fascinating portraits by the likes of Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Modest Mussorgsky; and a number of the truest representations of peasants, workers and toilers, such as his famous painting “Sailors on the Volga”; In addition to works of cruel content and terrible impact, some of them were withdrawn from the show, such as “Ivan the Terrible Slaughtering His Son” and “Saint Nicholas of Livia”

It is true that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the previous motive behind Repin’s recovery in these lines, from the point of view of stressing his right to regain his first national belonging to his birthplace; However, the most prominent incentive is Repin’s unique painting “The Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan”, which carried and continues to carry exceptional features on various levels, starting with artistic and plastic uniqueness that remains behind its powerful sustainable inspirational energies, and the uniqueness of the multiple messages it conveys in politics, culture, religion, myth and resistance And a third uniqueness in its influence on the imagination of successive literary eras and different schools and styles across Russian borders.

It is a plate located at 2.03 x 3.58, in metric scales; The time of its completion began in 1880 and ended in 1891; Alexander III, Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, did not hesitate to pay 35, 000 rubles for its purchase, setting the record for the most expensive painting of its time; Today it hangs on one of the walls of the Petersburg State Museum. The roots of the painting's theme will be found in Nikolai Gogol's novel "Taras Bulba", and thus we will also see it in the Russian and American films based on the novel; And its echoes will resonate with a French poet unexpected in this field: Guillaume Apollinaire!

Most of Repin's critics admit that he distanced his brush from Orientalist stereotypes and belittling the Ottoman Other; Especially since the popularly circulated text of the message, true or purported, is repeatedly winked from Al-Sharq and Al-Mashareqah channels.

The painting depicts a group of Cossacks, in a state of frolic, ecstasy, pride and drunkenness, gathering around a comrade holding a feather and writing on a piece of paper; The title of the work refers to a common Cossack tale, neither confirmed nor completely denied by the historical record.

It tells that a group of Cossack heroes sent a message of defiance and a promise of resistance to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, whose reign witnessed the expansion of the Sultanate and its reach in Vienna, Poland, Hungary and the outskirts of Ukraine. The letter, as circulated in the popular narrations, is replete with obscene insults and obscene words, but in the end it reflects many of the qualities of valor, daring and nobility that characterized the Cossacks throughout history; It was precisely this spirit that gave the story, and the message, if it really existed, a special attraction that caught the attention of Repin, and Gogol accepted him, and after them the French singer/poet Léo Ferret.

In order for the status of this message to become clearer, especially in its legendary formation that was subjected to a lot of amplification, exaggeration and intimidation, it should be noted that the methods of transmission in European parts began from translation into German since 1683, where it played a direct role in raising the morale of the people of Vienna during the siege; It was also translated into English, although the sword of the Sultanate did not reach the English mainland.

It is remarkable, and not without amazement, that the tale of the letter that strengthens the Cossacks in the face of the Ottoman invasion, was again translated into English with the intent of including it in Bernard Girney's book, The Russian Reader, which was printed in 1947 and served as a guide to the Cold War. That, and other information, was available and spread and surrounded the message with legitimate questions about credibility between what is reliable and acceptable and what is a creation and slander. However, the Cossack message did not lose any of its momentum, but rather the events, facts and subsequent wars increased its attractiveness.

Returning to Repin, the seduction of the message was too powerful for the great artist to distance himself from the project on the grounds of differentiating between truth and myth, but at the same time he did not reduce the work to a hollow, inciting level, and chose better documentation, which was already evident in the accuracy of the features on the faces, and the language of the bodies gathered around The author of the letter, clothes, hats and weapons are of Cossack origin.

While some of Repin’s critics tend to express a reservation here or there about the general atmosphere in the painting, in terms of showing arrogance, sophistication, or excessive portrayals of joy, joy and glee, most of them admit that he distanced his brush from Orientalist stereotyping and demeaning the Ottoman other; Especially since the popularly circulated text of the message, true or purported, repeatedly winks from Al-Sharq and Al-Mashareqah channels.

In the year 1880, before he began painting, Repin visited most of the cities of Ukraine from Kyiv to Odessa, and specially stopped in Zaporozhye to paint what he believed to be the tomb of the famous Cossack fighter Ivan Serko, who would occupy the forefront of the famous message board. Destiny wants these days, after 142 years and under the barrage of Russian bombardment and the dangers of nuclear radiation, that the people of Zaporozhye find themselves faced with the duty to write a new message of resistance; Not to an Ottoman sultan this time, but to… Tsar Putin!