Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/withfireandswor05siengoog
2. The letter with a superscript dot is represented by
[.Z], [.z]. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Popular Edition.
* * *
WITH FIRE AND SWORD.
BY
HENRYK SIENKIKWICZ.
THE WORKS
OF
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ.
TRANSLATED BY JEREMIAH CURTIN.
* * *
Hania, 1 vol.
Yanko the Musician, and Other Stories, 1 vol.
Lillian Morris, and Other Stories, 1 vol.
* * *
Historical Romances.
Poland, Turkey, Russia, and Sweden.
With Fire And Sword, 1 vol.
The Deluge. 2 vols.
Pan Michael. 1 vol.
ROME IN THE TIME OF NERO.
"QUO VADIS." 1 vol.
* * *
Novels of Modern Poland.
Children of the Soil. 1 vol.
Without Dogma. 1 vol.
[Illustration: Henryk Sienkiewicz and his Children.]
Copyright, 1898, by Little, Brown, and Company.
WITH
FIRE AND SWORD.
An Historical Novel
OF
POLAND AND RUSSIA.
BY
HENRYK SIENKIKWICZ.
_AUTHORIZED AND UNABRIDGED TRANSLATION FROM
THE POLISH BY_
JEREMIAH CURTIN.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1904.
_Copyright, 1890, 1898_,
By Jeremiah Curtin.
_All rights reserved_.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
TO
PROF. JOHN FISKE,
MY CLASSMATE AND FRIEND, MY FELLOW-TRAVELLER IN
BOTH HEMISPHERES, THE LUMINOUS HISTORIAN
OF DECISIVE PERIODS IN AMERICA,
IS DEDICATED THIS VOLUME CONCERNING A MOMENTOUS
CONFLICT IN EUROPE.
JEREMIAH CURTIN.
Washington, D.C.,
April 7, 1890.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Henryk Sienkiewicz and his Children.
From a photograph.
Map of the Polish Commonwealth.
"The falcon began to draw the hands together."
Drawn by J. Wagrez.
Vladislav IV., King of Poland.
From an engraving by Moncornet.
"He raised his eyes and began to pray aloud".
Drawn by J. Wagrez.
Bogdan Hmelnitski.
From an old engraving.
"The little knight, having discovered the whole power of his
opponent, pushed on him briskly".
Drawn by Evert Van Muyden.
Yerzy Ossolinski, Chancellor of Poland.
From an engraving by Moncornet.
"Before them stood a kind of frightful-looking man, or rather an
apparition".
Drawn by Evert Van Muyden.
[Illustration: Map of the Polish Commonwealth.]
INTRODUCTION.
The history of the origin and career of the two Slav States, Poland and
Russia, is interesting not merely because it contains a vast number of
surprising scenes and marvellous pictures of life, not merely because
it gives us a kaleidoscope as it were of the acts of men, but because
these acts in all their variety fall into groups which may be referred
each to its proper source and origin, and each group contains facts
that concern the most serious problems of history and political
development.
The history of these two States should be studied as one, or rather as
two parts of one history, if we are to discover and grasp the meaning
of either part fully. When studied as a whole, this history gives us
the life story of the greater portion of the Slav race placed between
two hostile forces,--the Germans on the west, the Mongols and Tartars
on the east.
The advance of the Germans on the Slav tribes and later on Poland
presents, perhaps, the best example in history of the methods of
European civilization. The entire Baltic coast from Lubeck eastward was
converted to Christianity by the Germans at the point of the sword. The
duty of rescuing these people from the errors of paganism formed the
moral pretext for conquering them and taking their lands. The warrior
was accompanied by the missionary, followed by the political colonist.
The people of the country deprived of their lands were reduced to
slavery; and if any escaped this lot, they were men from the higher
classes who joined the conqueror in the capacity of assistant
oppressors. The work was long and doubtful. The Germans made many
failures, for their management was often very bad. The Slavs west of
the Oder were stubborn, and under good leadership might have been
invincible; but the leadership did not come, and to the Germans at last
came the Hohenzollerns.
For the serious student there is no richer field of labor than the
history of Poland and the Slavs of the Baltic, which is inseparable
from the history of Mark Brandenburg and the two military orders, the
Teutonic Knights and the Knights of the Sword.
The conquest of Russia by the Mongols, the subjection of Europeans to
Asiatics,--not Asiatics of the south, but warriors from cold regions
led by men of genius; for such were Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and the
lieutenants sent to the west,--was an affair of incomparably greater
magnitude than the German wars on the Baltic.
The physical grip of the Mongol on Russia was irresistible. There was
nothing for the Russian princes to do but submit if they wished to
preserve their people from dissolution. They had to bow down to every
whim of the conqueror; suffer indignity, insult, death,--that is, death
of individuals. The Russians endured for a long time without apparent
result. But they were studying their conquerors, mastering their
policy; and they mastered it so well that finally the Prince of Moscow
made use of the Mongols to complete the union of eastern Russia and
reduce all the provincial princes of the country, his own relatives, to
the position of ordinary landholders subject to himself.
The difference between the Poles and Russians seems to be this,--that
the Russians saw through the policy of their enemies, and then overcame
them; while the Poles either did not understand the Germans, or if they
did, did not overcome them, though they had the power.
This Slav history is interesting to the man of science, it is
interesting also to the practical statesman, because there is no
country in the Eastern hemisphere whose future may be considered
outside of Russian influence, no country whose weal or woe may not
become connected in some way with Russia. At the same time there are no
states studied by so few and misunderstood by so many as the former
Commonwealth of Poland,--whose people, brave and brilliant but
politically unsuccessful, have received more sympathy than any other
within the circle of civilization,--and Russia, whose people in
strength of character and intellectual gifts are certainly among the
first of the Aryan race, though many men have felt free to describe
them in terms exceptionally harsh and frequently unjust.
The leading elements of this history on its western side are Poland,
the Catholic Church, Germany; on the eastern side they are Russia,
Eastern Orthodoxy, Northern Asia.
Now let us see what this western history was. In the middle of the
ninth century Slav tribes of various denominations occupied the entire
Baltic coast west of the Vistula; a line drawn from Lubeck to the Elbe,
ascending the river to Magdeburg, thence to the western ridge of the
Bohemian mountains, and passing on in a somewhat irregular course,
leaving Carinthia and Styria on the east, gives the boundary between
the Germans and the Slavs at that period. Very nearly in the centre of
the territory north of Bohemia and the Carpathians lived one of a
number of Slav tribes, the Polyane (or men of the plain), who occupied
the region afterwards called Great Poland by the Poles, and now called
South Prussia by the Germans. In this Great Poland political life among
the Northwestern Slavs began in the second half of the ninth century.
About the middle of the tenth, Mechislav (Mieczislaw), the ruler,
received Christianity, and the modest title of Count of the German
Empire. Boleslav the Brave, his son and successor, extended his
territory to the upper Elbe, from which region its boundary line passed
through or near Berlin, whence it followed the Oder to the sea. Before
his death, in 1025, Boleslav wished to be anointed king by the Pope.
The ceremony was denied him, therefore he had it performed by bishops
at home. About a century later the western boundary was pushed forward
by Boleslav Wry-mouth (1132-1139) to a point on the Baltic about
half-way between Stettin and Lubeck. This was the greatest extension of
Poland to the west. Between this line and the Elbe were Slav tribes;
but the region had already become marken (marches) where the intrusive
Germans were struggling for the lands and persons of the Slavs.
The eastern boundary of Poland at this period served also as the
western boundary of Russia from the head-waters of the western branch
of the river San in the Carpathian Mountains at a point west of Premysl
(in the Galicia of to-day) to Brest-Litovsk, from which point the
Russian boundary continued toward the northeast till it reached the
sea, leaving Pskoff considerably and Yurieff (now Dorpat) slightly to
the east,--that is, on Russian territory. Between Russia, north of
Brest-Litovsk and Poland, was the irregular triangle composing the
lands of Lithuanian and Finnish tribes. From the upper San the Russian
boundary southward coincided with the Carpathians, including the
territory between the Pruth to its mouth and the Carpathians. This
boundary between Poland and Russia, established at that period,
corresponds as nearly as possible with the line of demarcation between
the two peoples at the present day.
During the two centuries following 1139, Poland continued to lose on
the west and the north, and that process was fairly begun through which
the Germans finally excluded the Poles from the sea, and turned the
cradle of Poland into South Prussia, the name which it bears to-day.
At the end of the fourteenth century a step was taken by the Poles
through which it was hoped to win in other places far more than had
been lost on the west. Poland turned now to the east; but by leaving
her historical basis on the Baltic, by deserting her political
birthplace, the only ground where she had a genuine mission, Poland
entered upon a career which was certain to end in destruction, unless
she could win the Russian power by agreement, or bend it by conquest,
and then strengthened by this power, turn back and redeem the lost
lands of Pomerania and Prussia.
The first step in the new career was an alliance with Yagello (Yahailo)
of Lithuania, from which much was hoped. This event begins a new era in
Polish history; to this event we must now give attention, for it was
the first in a long series which ended in the great outburst described
in this book,--the revolt of the Russians against the Commonwealth.
To reach the motives of this famous agreement between the Lithuanian
prince and the nobles and clergy of Poland,--for these two estates had
become the only power in the land,--we must turn to Russia.
Lithuania of itself was small, and a prince of that country, if it
stood alone, would have received scant attention from Poland; but the
Lithuanian Grand Prince was ruler over all the lands of western Russia
as well as those of his own people.
What was Russia?
The definite appearance of Russia in history dates from 862, when Rurik
came to Novgorod, invited by the people to rule over them. Oleg, the
successor of this prince, transferred his capital from Novgorod to
Kieff on the Dnieper, which remained the chief city and capital for two
centuries and a half. Rurik's great-grandson, Vladimir, introduced
Christianity into Russia at the end of the tenth century. During his
long reign and that of his son Yaroslav the Lawgiver, the boundary was
fixed between Russia and Poland through the places described above, and
coincided very nearly with the watershed dividing the two river-systems
of the Dnieper and the Vistula, and serves to this day as the boundary
between the Russian and Polish languages and the Eastern and Catholic
churches.
In 1157 Kieff ceased to be the seat of the Grand Prince, the capital of
Russia. A new centre of activity and government was founded in the
north,--first at Suzdal, and then at Vladimir, to be transferred later
to Moscow.
In 1240 the conquest of Russia by the Tartars was complete. Half a
million or more of armed Asiatics had swept over the land, destroying
everything where they went. A part of this multitude advanced through
Poland, and were stopped in Silesia and Moravia only by the combined
efforts of central Europe. The Tartar dominion lasted about two hundred
and fifty years (1240-1490), and during this period great changes took
place. Russia before the Tartar conquest was a large country, whose
western boundary was the eastern boundary of Poland; liberated Russia
was a comparatively small country, with its capital at Moscow, and
having interposed between it and Poland a large state extending from
the Baltic to the Black Sea,--a state which was composed of two thirds
of that Russia which was ruled before the Tartar conquest by the
descendants of Rurik; a state which included Little, Red, Black, and
White Russia, more than two thirds of the best lands, and Kieff, with
the majority of the historic towns of pre-Tartar Russia.
How was this state founded?
This state was the Lithuanian Russian,--Litva í Rus (Lithuania and
Russia), as it is called by the Russians,--and it rose in the following
manner. In the irregular triangle on the Baltic, between Russia and
Poland of the twelfth century, lived tribes of Finnish and Lithuanian
stock, about a dozen in number. In the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries these were all conquered,--the Prussian Lithuanians from the
Niemen to the Vistula, by the Teutonic Knights, aided by crusading
adventurers from western Europe; the others, Lithuanian and Finnish, by
the Knights of the Sword,--with the exception of two tribes, the
Lithuanians proper, on the upper waters of the Niemen and its
tributaries, and the Jmuds or Samogitians on the right bank of the same
river, lower down and between the Lithuanians and the sea. These two
small tribes were destined through their princes--remarkable men in the
fullest sense of the word--to play a great part in Russian and Polish
history. It is needless to say much of the Lithuanians, who are better
known to scholars than any people, perhaps, of similar numbers in
Europe. The main interest in them at present is confined to their
language, which, though very valuable to the philologist and beautiful
in itself, has never been used in government or law, and has but one
book considered as belonging to literature,--"The Four Seasons" by
Donaleitis.
Though small, the Lithuanian country, ruled by a number of petty
princes, was as much given to anarchy as larger aggregations of men.
United for a time under Mindog by reason of pressure from outside, the
Lithuanians rose first to prominence under Gedimin (1315-1340), who in
a quarter of a century was able to substitute himself for the petty
princes of western Russia and extend his power to the south of Kieff.
Gedimin was followed by Olgerd, who with his uncle Keistut ruled till
1377; during which time the domains of the Lithuanian prince were
extended to the Crimea, and included the whole basin of the Dnieper
with its tributaries, together with the upper Dvina. Gedimin and Olgerd
respected in all places the clergy of the Eastern Church, and thus
acquired rule over a great extent of country with comparative ease and
rapidity.
Olgerd, who had completed a great state, left it to his sons and his
brother Keistut. Yagello (Yahailo), one of these sons, had Keistut put
to death; his brothers and cousins fled; Yagello became sole master. At
this juncture the nobles and clergy of Poland effected an arrangement
by which Yagello, on condition of becoming a Catholic, introducing the
Catholic religion into Lithuania, and joining the state to Poland, was
to marry the Queen Yadviga (the last survivor of the royal house) and
be crowned king of Poland at Cracow. All these conditions were carried
out, and with the reign of Yagello Polish history assumes an entirely
new character.
With the establishment by Gedimin and Olgerd of the Lithuanian dynasty
and its conquests, there were two Russias instead of one,--Western
Russia, ruled by the house of Gedimin, and Eastern Russia, ruled by the
house of Rurik. It had become the ambition of the Lithuanian princes to
unite all Russia; it had long been the fixed purpose of the princes at
Moscow to recover their ancient patrimony, the lands of Vladimir and
Yaroslav; that is, all western Russia to the Polish frontier;
consequently all the lands added by the Lithuanian princes to their
little realm on the Niemen and its tributaries. This struggle between
the two houses was very bitter, and more than once it seemed as though
Moscow's day had come, and Vilna was to be the capital of reconstituted
Russia.
When the question was at this stage, Yagello became King of Poland. The
union, purely personal at first, became more intimate later on by means
of the two elements of Polish influence, the Church and the nobility.
Catholicism was made the religion of the Lithuanians at once; and
twenty-seven years later, at Horodlo, it was settled that the
Lithuanian Catholics of the higher classes should receive the same
privileges as the Polish nobility, with whom they were joined by means
of heraldry,--a peculiar arrangement, through which a number of
Lithuanian families received the arms of some Polish house, and became
thus associated, as the original inhabitants of America are associated
under the same _totem_ by the process of adoption.
Without giving details, for which there is no space here, we state
merely the meaning of all the details. Lithuania struggled persistently
against anything more than a personal union, while Poland struggled
just as persistently for a complete union; but no matter how the
Lithuanians might gain at one time or another, the personal union under
a king influenced by Polish ideas joined to the great weight of the
clergy and nobility was too much for them, and the end of the whole
struggle was that under Sigismond Augustus, the last of the Yagellon
kings, a diet was held at Lublin in which a union between Poland and
Lithuania was proclaimed against the protest of a large number of the
Lithuanians who left the diet. The King, who was hereditary Grand
Duke of Lithuania, and childless, made a present to Poland of his
rights,--made Poland his heir. The petty nobility of Lithuania were
placed on the same legal footing as the princes and men of great
historic families. Lithuania was assimilated to Poland in institutions.
The northern part of West Russia was attached to Lithuania, and all
southern Russia merged directly in Poland. If the work of this diet had
been productive of concord, and therefore of strength, Poland might
have established herself firmly by the sea and won the first place in
eastern Europe; but the Commonwealth, either from choice or necessity,
was more occupied in struggling with Russians than in standing with
firm foot on the Baltic. Sound statesmanship would have taught the
Poles that for them it was a question of life and death to possess
Pomerania and Prussia, and make the Oder at least their western
boundary. They had the power to do that; they had the power to expel
the two military orders from the coast; but they did not exert it,--a
neglect which cost them dear in later times. Moscow would not have
escaped the Poles had they been masters of the Baltic, and had they,
instead of fighting with Cossacks and Russians, attached them to the
Commonwealth by toleration and justice.
The whole internal policy of Poland from the coronation of Yagello to
the reign of Vladislav IV. was to assimilate the nobility of Lithuania
and Russia to that of Poland in political rights and in religious
profession. The success was complete in the political sense, and
practically so in the religious. The Polish nobility, who were in fact
the state, possessed at the time of Yagello's coronation all the land,
and owned the labor of the people; later on they ceased to pay taxes of
any kind. It was a great bribe to the nobles of Lithuania and Russia to
occupy the same position. The Lithuanians became Catholics at the
accession of Yagello, or soon after; but in Russia, where all belonged
to the Orthodox Church, the process was slow, even if sure. The princes
Ostrorog and Dominik Zaslavski of this book were of Russian families
which held their faith for a long time. The parents of Prince Yeremi
Vishnyevetski were Orthodox, and his mother on her death-bed implored
him to be true to the faith of his ancestors.
All had been done that could be done with the nobility; but the great
mass of Russian people holding the same faith as the Russians of the
East, whose capital was at Moscow, were not considered reliable;
therefore a union of churches was effected, mainly through the formal
initiative of the King Sigismond III. and a few ecclesiastics, but
rejected by a great majority of the Russian clergy and people. This new
or united church, which retained the Slav language with Eastern customs
and liturgy, but recognized the supremacy of the Pope, was made the
state church of Russia.
From this rose all the religious trouble.
The Russians, when Hmelnitski appeared, were in the following
condition: Their land was gone; the power of life and death over them
resided in lords, either Poles or Polonized Russians, who generally
gave this power to agents or tenants, not infrequently Jews. All
justice, all administration, all power belonged to the lord or to
whomsoever he delegated his authority; there was no appeal. A people
with an active communal government of their own in former times were
now reduced to complete slavery. Such was the Russian complaint on the
material side. On the moral side it was that their masters were
filching their faith from them. Having stripped them of everything in
this life, they were trying to deprive them of life to come.
The outburst of popular rage against Poland was without example in
history for intensity and volume, and this would have made the revolt
remarkable whatever its motives or objects. But the Cossack war was of
world-wide importance in view of the issues. The triumph of Poland
would have brought the utter subjection of the Cossacks and the people,
with the extinction of Eastern Orthodoxy not only in Russia but in
other lands; for the triumph of Poland would have left no place for
Moscow on earth but a place of subjection. The triumph of the Cossacks
would have brought a mixed government, with religious toleration and a
king having means to curb the all-powerful nobles. This was what
Hmelnitski sought; this was the dream of Ossolinski the Chancellor;
this, if realized, might possibly have saved the Commonwealth, and made
it a constitutional government instead of an association of
irresponsible magnates.
It turned out that the Cossacks and the uprisen people were not a match
for the Poles, and it was not in the interest of the Tartars to give
the Cossacks the fruits of victory. It was the policy of the Tartars to
bring the Poles into trouble and then rescue them; they wished the
Poles to have the upper hand, but barely have it, and be in continual
danger of losing it.
The battle of Berestechko, instead of giving peace to the Commonwealth,
opened a new epoch of trouble. Hmelnitski, the ablest man in Europe at
that time, could be conquered by nothing but death. Though beaten
through the treachery of the Khan at Berestechko and perhaps also by
treason in his own camp, he rallied, concluded the treaty of Bélaya
Tserkoff, which reduced the Cossack army from forty to twelve thousand
men, but left Hmelnitski hetman of the Zaporojians. That was the great
mistake of the Poles; every success was for them a failure so long as
Hmelnitski had a legal existence.
The Poles, though intellectual, sympathetic, brave, and gifted with
high personal qualities that have made them many friends, have been
always deficient in collective wisdom; and there is probably no more
astonishing antithesis in Europe than the Poles as individuals and the
Poles as a people.
After Berestechko the Poles entered the Ukraine as masters.
Vishnyevetski went as the ruling spirit. To all appearance the time of
his triumph had come; but one day after dinner he fell ill and died
suddenly. The verdict of the Russian people was: The Almighty preserved
him through every danger, saved him from every enemy, and by reason of
the supreme wickedness of "Yarema," reserved him for his own holy and
punishing hand.
The old order of things was restored in Russia,--landlords, garrisons,
Jews; but now came the most striking event in the whole history.
Moldavia, the northern part of the present kingdom of Romania, was at
that time a separate principality, owning the suzerainty of the Sultan.
Formerly it had been a part of the Russian principality of Galich
(Galicia), joined to Poland in the reign of Kazimir the Great, but
connected, at the time of our story, with Turkey. The Poles had
intimate relations with the country, and sought to bring it back. The
Hospodar was Vassily Lupul, a man of fabulous wealth, according to
report, and the father of two daughters, whose beauty was the wonder of
eastern Europe. Prince Radzivil of Lithuania had married the elder; the
younger, Domna (Domina) Rosanda, was sought in marriage by three men
from Poland and by Timofei Hmelnitski, the son of Bogdan. The first of
the Poles was Dmitry Vishnyevetski; the second was Kalinovski, the aged
hetman of the Crown, captured by Hmelnitski at Korsún, but now free and
more ambitions than any man in the Commonwealth of half his age, which
was then near seventy.
Lupul, who had consented to the marriage of his daughter with young
Hmelnitski, preferred Vishnyevetski; whereupon Bogdan exclaimed, "We
will send a hundred thousand best men with the bridegroom." Thirty-six
thousand Cossacks and Tartars set out for Yassy, the residence of
Lupul. Kalinovski, the Polish hetman, with twenty thousand men, barred
the way to young Hmelnitski at Batog on the boundary. It was supposed
that Timofei was attended by a party of only five thousand, and
Kalinovski intended to finish a rival and destroy the son of an enemy
at a blow. This delusion of the hetman was probably caused, but in
every case confirmed, by a letter from Bogdan, in which he stated that
his son, with some attendants, was on his way to marry the daughter of
the Hospodar; that young men are hot-headed and given to quarrels,
blood might be spilled; therefore he asked Kalinovski to withdraw and
let the party pass.
This was precisely what Kalinovski would not do; he resolved to stop
Timofei by force. The first day, five thousand Cossacks and Tartars,
while passing to the west, were attacked by the Poles, who pursued them
with cavalry. When a good distance from the camp, a courier rushed to
the hetman with news of a general attack on the rear of the Polish
army. The Poles returned in haste, pursued in their turn.
Young Hmelnitski had fallen upon a division of the army in the rear of
the camp, and almost destroyed it. Darkness brought an end to the
struggle. No eye was closed on either side that night. One half of the
Polish army resolved to escape in spite of the hetman. At daybreak they
were marching. "They shall not flee!" said Kalinovski. "Stop them with
cavalry; open on the cowards with cannon!" One part of the Polish army
hurried to stop the other; there was a discharge of artillery; some of
the fugitives rushed on, but most of them stopped. Then a second
discharge of artillery, and a battle began. The Cossacks gazed on this
wonderful scene; when their amazement had passed, they attacked the
enemy, and indescribable slaughter began. It was impossible for the
Poles to re-form or make effective defence. At this moment the
army-servants, many of whom were Russians, set fire to the camp.
Outnumbered and panic-stricken, thousands of Poles rushed into the Bug
and were drowned. The Cossacks, with Berestechko in mind, showed mercy
to no man; and of the whole army of twenty thousand, less than five
hundred escaped. The peasants in all the country about killed the
fugitives with scythes and clubs. Those who crossed the river were
slaughtered on the other bank; among them was Samuel Kalinovski, son of
the hetman. Then Kalinovski himself, seeing that all was lost cried, "I
have no wish to live; I am ashamed to look on the sun of this morning!"
and rushed to the thick of the fight. He perished; and a Nogai horseman
raced over the field, while from his saddle-bow depended the head of
the hetman with its white streaming hair. After the battle the body was
discovered; on it the portrait of Domna Rosanda and the letter of
Bogdan.
Farther on, near the Bug, was a division of five thousand Germans under
command of Marek Sobieski, the gifted chief who had fought at Zbaraj.
Attacked in front by the Cossacks, they stood with manful persistence
till Karach Murza, the Nogai commander, at the head of fourteen
thousand men, descended upon them from the hills of Botog like a mighty
rain from the clouds or a whirlwind of the desert, as the Ukraine
chronicler phrases it. Split in the centre, torn through and through,
the weapons dropped from their hands, they were ridden down and sabred
by Nogais and Cossacks. Sobieski perished; Pshiyemski, commander of
artillery, was killed.
A year later the Poles at Jvanyets were in greater straits than ever
before. They were surrounded by Hmelnitski and the Khan so that no
escape was possible; but they had more gold to give than had the
Cossacks. They satisfied those in power, from the Khan downward, with
gifts, and covenanted to let them plunder Russia and seize Russian
captives during six weeks. On these conditions the Tartars deserted
Hmelnitski, peace was concluded, and the Polish army and king were
saved from captivity.
This was the last act of the Cossack-Tartar alliance. Hmelnitski now
turned to Moscow; the Zaporojian army took the oath of allegiance to
Alexis, father of Peter the Great. Lithuania and western Russia were
overrun by the forces of Moscow and the Cossacks. The Swedes occupied
Warsaw and Cracow. Karl Gustav, their king, became king of Poland. Yan
Kazimir fled to Silesia.
Again the Polish king came back, but soon resigned, and ended his life
in France.
The eastern bank of the Dnieper, with Kieff on the west, went to
Russia; but it was not till the reign of Katherine II. that western
Russia was united to the east, and Prussia and Austria received all the
lands of Poland proper.
I feel constrained to ask kindly indulgence from the readers of this
sketch. I am greatly afraid that it will seem indefinite and lacking in
precision; but the field to be covered is so great that I wrote with
two kinds of readers in view,--those who are already well acquainted
with Slav history, and those who do not know this history yet, but who
may be roused to examine it for themselves. I hope to give a sketch of
this history in a future not too remote, with an account of the sources
of original information; so that impartial students, as Americans are
by position, may have some assistance in beginning a work of such
commanding importance as the history of Poland and Russia.
Jeremiah Curtin.
Washington, D. C., April 4, 1890.
WITH FIRE AND SWORD.
CHAPTER I.
The year 1647 was that wonderful year in which manifold signs in the
heavens and on the earth announced misfortunes of some kind and unusual
events. Contemporary chroniclers relate that beginning with spring-time
myriads of locusts swarmed from the Wilderness, destroying the grain
and the grass; this was a forerunner of Tartar raids. In the summer
there was a great eclipse of the sun, and soon after a comet appeared
in the sky. In Warsaw a tomb was seen over the city, and a fiery cross
in the clouds; fasts were held and alms given, for some men declared
that a plague would come on the land and destroy the people. Finally,
so mild a winter set in, that the oldest inhabitants could not remember
the like of it. In the southern provinces ice did not confine the
rivers, which, swollen by the daily melting of snows, left their
courses and flooded the banks. Rainfalls were frequent. The steppe was
drenched, and became an immense slough. The sun was so warm in the
south that, wonder of wonders! in Bratslav and the Wilderness a green
fleece covered the steppes and plains in the middle of December. The
swarms in the beehives began to buzz and bustle; cattle were bellowing
in the fields. Since such an order of things appeared altogether
unnatural, all men in Russia who were waiting or looking for unusual
events turned their excited minds and eyes especially to the
Wilderness, from which rather than anywhere else danger might show
itself.
At that time there was nothing unusual in the Wilderness,--no struggles
there, nor encounters, beyond those of ordinary occurrence, and known
only to the eagles, hawks, ravens, and beasts of the plain. For the
Wilderness was of this character at that period. The last traces of
settled life ended on the way to the south, at no great distance beyond
Chigirin on the side of the Dnieper, and on the side of the Dniester
not far from Uman; then forward to the bays and sea there was nothing
but steppe after steppe, hemmed in by the two rivers as by a frame. At
the bend of the Dnieper in the lower country beyond the Cataracts
Cossack life was seething, but in the open plains no man dwelt; only
along the shores were nestled here and there little fields, like
islands in the sea. The land belonged in name to Poland, but it was an
empty land, in which the Commonwealth permitted the Tartars to graze
their herds; but since the Cossacks prevented this frequently, the
field of pasture was a field of battle too.
How many struggles were fought in that region, how many people had laid
down their lives there, no man had counted, no man remembered. Eagles,
falcons, and ravens alone saw these; and whoever from a distance heard
the sound of wings and the call of ravens, whoever beheld the whirl of
birds circling over one place, knew that corpses or unburied bones were
lying beneath. Men were hunted in the grass as wolves or wild goats.
All who wished, engaged in this hunt. Fugitives from the law defended
themselves in the wild steppes. The armed herdsman guarded his flock,
the warrior sought adventure, the robber plunder, the Cossack a Tartar,
the Tartar a Cossack. It happened that whole bands guarded herds from
troops of robbers. The steppe was both empty and filled, quiet and
terrible, peaceable and full of ambushes; wild by reason of its wild
plains, but wild, too, from the wild spirit of men.
At times a great war filled it. Then there flowed over it like waves
Tartar chambuls, Cossack regiments, Polish or Wallachian companies. In
the night-time the neighing of horses answered the howling of wolves,
the voices of drums and brazen trumpets flew on to the island of Ovid
and the sea, and along the black trail of Kutchman there seemed an
inundation of men. The boundaries of the Commonwealth were guarded from
Kamenyets to the Dnieper by outposts and stanitsas; and when the roads
were about to swarm with people, it was known especially by the
countless flocks of birds which, frightened by the Tartars, flew onward
to the north. But the Tartar, if he slipped out from the Black Forest
or crossed the Dniester from the Wallachian side, came by the southern
provinces together with the birds.
That winter, however, the birds did not come with their uproar to the
Commonwealth. It was stiller on the steppe than usual. At the moment
when our narrative begins the sun was just setting, and its reddish
rays threw light on a land entirely empty. On the northern rim of the
Wilderness, along the Omelnik to its mouth, the sharpest eye could not
discover a living soul, nor even a movement in the dark, dry, and
withered steppe grass. The sun showed but half its shield from behind
the horizon. The heavens became obscured, and then the steppe grew
darker and darker by degrees. Near the left bank, on a small height
resembling more a grave-mound than a hill, were the mere remnants of a
walled stanitsa which once upon a time had been built by Fedor
Buchatski and then torn down by raids. A long shadow stretched from
this ruin. In the distance gleamed the waters of the widespread
Omelnik, which in that place turned toward the Dnieper. But the lights
went out each moment in the heavens and on the earth. From the sky were
heard the cries of storks in their flight to the sea; with this
exception the stillness was unbroken by a sound.
Night came down upon the Wilderness, and with it the hour of ghosts.
Cossacks on guard in the stanitsas related in those days that the
shades of men who had fallen in sudden death and in sin used to rise up
at night and carry on dances in which they were hindered neither by
cross nor church. Also, when the wicks which showed the time of
midnight began to burn out, prayers for the dead were offered
throughout the stanitsas. It was said, too, that the shades of mounted
men coursing through the waste barred the road to wayfarers, whining
and begging them for a sign of the holy cross. Among these ghosts
vampires also were met with, who pursued people with howls. A trained
ear might distinguish at a distance the howls of a vampire from those
of a wolf. Whole legions of shadows were also seen, which sometimes
came so near the stanitsas that the sentries sounded the alarm. This
was generally the harbinger of a great war.
The meeting of a single ghost foreboded no good, either; but it was not
always necessarily of evil omen, for frequently a living man would
appear before travellers and vanish like a shadow, and therefore might
easily and often be taken for a ghost.
Night came quickly on the Omelnik, and there was nothing surprising in
the fact that a figure, either a man or a ghost, made its appearance at
the side of the deserted stanitsa. The moon coming out from behind the
Dnieper whitened the waste, the tops of the thistles, and the distance
of the steppe. Immediately there appeared lower down on the plain some
other beings of the night. The flitting clouds hid the light of the
moon from moment to moment; consequently those figures flashed up in
the darkness at one instant, and the next they were blurred. At times
they disappeared altogether, and seemed to melt in the shadow. Pushing
on toward the height on which the first man was standing, they stole up
quietly, carefully, slowly, halting at intervals.
There was something awe-exciting in their movements, as there was in
all that steppe which was so calm in appearance. The wind at times blew
from the Dnieper, causing a mournful rustle among the dried thistles,
which bent and trembled as in fear. At last the figures vanished in the
shadow of the ruins. In the uncertain light of that hour nothing could
be seen save the single horseman on the height.
But the rustle arrested his attention. Approaching the edge of the
mound, he began to look carefully into the steppe. At that moment the
wind stopped, the rustling ceased; there was perfect rest.
Suddenly a piercing whistle was heard; mingled voices began to shout in
terrible confusion, "Allah! Allah! Jesus Christ! Save! Kill!" The
report of muskets re-echoed; red flashes rent the darkness. The tramp
of horses was heard with the clash of steel. Some new horsemen rose as
it were from beneath the surface of the steppe. You would have said
that a storm had sprung up on a sudden in that silent and ominous land.
The shrieks of men followed the terrible clash. Then all was silent;
the struggle was over.
Apparently one of its usual scenes had been enacted in the Wilderness.
The horsemen gathered in groups on the height; a few of them
dismounted, and examined something carefully. Meanwhile a powerful and
commanding voice was heard in the darkness.
"Strike a fire in front!"
In a moment sparks sprang out, and soon a blaze flashed up from the dry
reeds and pitch-pine which wayfarers through the Wilderness always
carried with them.
Straightway the staff for a hanging-lamp was driven into the earth. The
glare from above illuminated sharply a number of men who were bending
over a form stretched motionless on the ground.
These men were soldiers, in red uniforms and wolf-skin caps. Of these,
one who sat on a valiant steed appeared to be the leader. Dismounting,
he approached the prostrate figure and inquired,--
"Well, Sergeant, is he alive yet, or is it all over with him?"
"He is alive, but there is a rattling in his throat; the lariat stifled
him."
"Who is he?"
"He is not a Tartar; some man of distinction."
"Then God be thanked!"
The chief looked attentively at the prostrate man.
"Well, just like a hetman."
"His horse is of splendid Tartar breed; the Khan has no better," said
the sergeant. "There he stands."
The lieutenant looked at the horse, and his face brightened. Two
soldiers held a really splendid steed, who, moving his ears and
distending his nostrils, pushed forward his head and looked with
frightened eyes at his master.
"But the horse will be ours, Lieutenant?" put in, with an inquiring
tone, the sergeant.
"Dog believer! would you deprive a Christian of his horse in the
steppe?"
"But it is our booty--"
Further conversation was interrupted by stronger breathing from the
suffocated man.
"Pour gorailka into his mouth," said the lieutenant, undoing his belt.
"Are we to spend the night here?"
"Yes. Unsaddle the horses and make a good fire."
The soldiers hurried around quickly. Some began to rouse and rub the
prostrate man; some started off for reeds to burn; others spread camel
and bear skins on the ground for couches.
The lieutenant, troubling himself no more about the suffocated
stranger, unbound his belt and stretched himself on a burka by the
fire. He was a very young man, of spare habit of body, dark complexion,
very elegant in manner, with a delicately cut countenance and a
prominent aquiline nose. In his eyes were visible desperate daring and
endurance, but his face had an honest look. His rather thick mustache
and a beard, evidently unshaven for a long time, gave him a seriousness
beyond his years.
Meanwhile two attendants were preparing the evening meal. Dressed
quarters of mutton were placed on the fire, a number of bustards and
partridges were taken from the packs, and one wild goat, which an
attendant began to skin without delay. The fire blazed up, casting out
upon the steppe an enormous ruddy circle of light. The suffocated man
began to revive slowly.
After a time he cast his bloodshot eyes around on the strangers,
examining their faces; then he tried to stand up. The soldier who had
previously talked with the lieutenant raised him by the armpits;
another put in his hand a halbert, upon which the stranger leaned with
all his force. His face was still purple, his veins swollen. At last,
with a suppressed voice, he coughed out his first word, "Water!"
They gave him gorailka, which he drank repeatedly, and which appeared
to do him good, for after he had removed the flask from his lips at
last, he inquired in a clear voice, "In whose hands am I?"
The officer rose and approached him. "In the hands of those who saved
you."
"It was not you, then, who caught me with a lariat?"
"No; the sabre is our weapon, not the lariat. You wrong our good
soldiers with the suspicion. You were seized by ruffians, pretended
Tartars. You can look at them if you are curious, for they are lying
out there slaughtered like sheep."
Saying this, he pointed with his hand to a number of dark bodies lying
below the height.
To this the stranger answered, "If you will permit me to rest."
They brought him a felt-covered saddle, on which he seated himself in
silence.
He was in the prime of life, of medium height, with broad shoulders,
almost gigantic build of body, and striking features. He had an
enormous head, a complexion dried and sunburnt, black eyes, somewhat
aslant, like those of a Tartar; over his thin lips hung a mustache
ending at the tips in two broad bunches. His powerful face indicated
courage and pride. There was in it something at once attractive and
repulsive,--the dignity of a hetman with Tartar cunning, kindness, and
ferocity.
After he had sat awhile on the saddle he rose, and beyond all
expectation, went to look at the bodies instead of returning thanks.
"How churlish!" muttered the lieutenant.
The stranger examined each face carefully, nodding his head like a man
who has seen through everything; then he turned slowly to the
lieutenant, slapping himself on the side, and seeking involuntarily his
belt, behind which he wished evidently to pass his hand.
This importance in a man just rescued from the halter did not please
the young lieutenant, and he said in irony,--
"One might say that you are looking for acquaintances among those
robbers, or that you are saying a litany for their souls."
"You are both right and wrong. You are right, for I was looking for
acquaintances; and you are wrong, for they are not robbers, but
servants of a petty nobleman, my neighbor."
"Then it is clear that you do not drink out of the same spring with
that neighbor."
A strange smile passed over the thin lips of the stranger.
"And in that you are wrong," muttered he through his teeth. In a moment
he added audibly: "But pardon for not having first given thanks for the
aid and effective succor which freed me from such sudden death. Your
courage has redeemed my carelessness, for I separated from my men; but
my gratitude is equal to your good-will."
Having said this, he reached his hand to the lieutenant.
But the haughty young man did not stir from his place, and was in no
hurry to give his hand; instead of that he said,--
"I should like to know first if I have to do with a nobleman; for
though I have no doubt you are one, still it does not befit me to
accept the thanks of a nameless person."
"I see you have the mettle of a knight, and speak justly, I should have
begun my speech and thanks with my name. I am Zenovi Abdank; my
escutcheon that of Abdank with a cross; a nobleman from the province of
Kieff; a landholder, and a colonel of the Cossack regiment of Prince
Dominik Zaslavski."
"And I am Yan Skshetuski, lieutenant of the armored regiment of Prince
Yeremi Vishnyevetski."
"You serve under a famous warrior. Accept my thanks and hand."
The lieutenant hesitated no longer. It is true that armored officers
looked down on men of the other regiments; but Pan Yan was in the
steppe, in the Wilderness, where such things were less remembered.
Besides, he had to do with a colonel. Of this he had ocular proof, for
when his soldiers brought Pan Abdank the belt and sabre which were
taken from his person in order to revive him, they brought at the same
time a short staff with a bone shaft and ivory head, such as Cossack
colonels were in the habit of using. Besides, the dress of Zenovi
Abdank was rich, and his educated speech indicated a quick mind and
social training.
Pan Yan therefore invited him to supper. The odor of roasted meats
began to go out from the fire just then, tickling the nostrils and the
palate. The attendant brought the meats, and served them on a plate.
The two men fell to eating; and when a good-sized goat-skin of
Moldavian wine was brought, a lively conversation sprang up without
delay.
"A safe return home to us," said Pan Yan.
"Then you are returning home? Whence, may I ask?" inquired Abdank.
"From a long journey,--from the Crimea."
"What were you doing there? Did you go with ransom?"
"No, Colonel, I went to the Khan himself."
Abdank turned an inquisitive ear. "Did you, indeed? Were you well
received? And what was your errand to the Khan?"
"I carried a letter from Prince Yeremi."
"You were an envoy, then! What did the prince write to the Khan about?"
The lieutenant looked quickly at his companion.
"Well, Colonel," said he, "you have looked into the eyes of ruffians
who captured you with a lariat; that is your affair. But what the
prince wrote to the Khan is neither your affair nor mine, but theirs."
"I wondered, a little while ago," answered Abdank, cunningly, "that his
highness the prince should send such a young man to the Khan; but after
your answer I am not astonished, for I see that you are young in years,
but mature in experience and wit."
The lieutenant swallowed the smooth, flattering words, merely twisted
his young mustache, and inquired,--
"Now do you tell me what you are doing on the Omelnik, and how you come
to be here alone."
"I am not alone, I left my men on the road; and I am going to Kudák, to
Pan Grodzitski, who is transferred to the command there, and to whom
the Grand Hetman has sent me with letters."
"And why don't you go by water?"
"I am following an order from which I may not depart."
"Strange that the hetman issued such an order, when in the steppe you
have fallen into straits which you would have avoided surely had you
been going by water."
"Oh, the steppes are quiet at present; my acquaintance with them does
not begin with to-day. What has met me is the malice and hatred of
man."
"And who attacked you in this fashion?"
"It is a long story. An evil neighbor, Lieutenant, who has destroyed my
property, is driving me from my land, has killed my son, and besides,
as you have seen, has made an attempt on my life where we sit."
"But do you not carry a sabre at your side?"
On the powerful face of Abdank there was a gleam of hatred, in his eyes
a sullen glare. He answered slowly and with emphasis,--
"I do; and as God is my aid, I shall seek no other weapon against my
foes."
The lieutenant wished to say something, when suddenly the tramp of
horses was heard in the steppe, or rather the hurried slapping of
horses' feet on the softened grass. That moment, also, the lieutenant's
orderly who was on guard hurried up with news that men of some kind
were approaching.
"Those," said Abdank, "are surely my men, whom I left beyond the
Tasmina. Not suspecting perfidy, I promised to wait for them here."
Soon a crowd of mounted men formed a half-circle in front of the
height. By the glitter of the fire appeared heads of horses, with open
nostrils, puffing from exertion; and above them the faces of riders,
who, bending forward, sheltered their eyes from the glare of the fire
and gazed eagerly toward the light.
"Hei! men, who are you?" inquired Abdank.
"Servants of God," answered voices from the darkness.
"Just as I thought,--my men," repeated Abdank, turning to the
lieutenant. "Come this way."
Some of them dismounted and drew near the fire.
"Oh, how we hurried, batko! But what's the matter?"
"There was an ambush. Hvedko, the traitor, learned of my coming to this
place, and lurked here with others. He must have arrived some time in
advance. They caught me with a lariat."
"God save us! What Poles are these about you?"
Saying this, they looked threateningly on Pan Skshetuski and his
companions.
"These are kind friends," said Abdank. "Glory be to God! I am alive and
well. We will push on our way at once."
"Glory be to God for that! We are ready."
The newly arrived began to warm their hands over the fire, for the
night was cool, though fine. There were about forty of them, sturdy men
and well armed. They did not look at all like registered Cossacks,
which astonished Pan Skshetuski not a little, especially since their
number was so considerable. Everything seemed very suspicious. If the
Grand Hetman had sent Abdank to Kudák, he would have given him a guard
of registered Cossacks; and in the second place, why should he order
him to go by the steppe from Chigirin, and not by water? The necessity
of crossing all the rivers flowing through the Wilderness to the
Dnieper could only delay the journey. It appeared rather as if Abdank
wanted to avoid Kudák.
In like manner, the personality of Abdank astonished the young
lieutenant greatly. He noticed at once that the Cossacks, who were
rather free in intercourse with their colonels, met him with unusual
respect, as if he were a real hetman. He must be a man of a heavy hand,
and what was most wonderful to Skshetuski, who knew the Ukraine on both
sides of the Dnieper, he had heard nothing of a famous Abdank. Besides,
there was in the countenance of the man something peculiar,--a certain
secret power which breathed from his face like heat from a flame, a
certain unbending will, declaring that this man withdraws before no man
and no thing. The same kind of will was in the face of Prince Yeremi
Vishnyevetski; but that which in the prince was an inborn gift of
nature special to his lofty birth and his position might astonish one
when found in a man of unknown name wandering in the wild steppe.
Pan Skshetuski[1] deliberated long. It occurred to him that this might
be some powerful outlaw who, hunted by justice, had taken refuge in the
Wilderness,--or the leader of a robber band; but the latter was not
probable. The dress and speech of the man showed something else. The
lieutenant was quite at a loss what course to take. He kept simply on
his guard. Meanwhile Abdank ordered his horse.
"Lieutenant, 'tis time for him to go who has the road before him. Let
me thank you again for your succor. God grant me to show you a service
of equal value!"
"I do not know whom I have saved, therefore I deserve no thanks."
"Your modesty, which equals your courage, is speaking now. Accept from
me this ring."
The lieutenant frowned and took a step backward, measuring with his
eyes Abdank, who then spoke on with almost paternal dignity in his
voice and posture,--
"But look, I offer you not the wealth of this ring, but its other
virtues. When still in the years of youth, a captive among infidels, I
got this from a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land. In the seal of it
is dust from the grave of Christ. Such a gift might not be refused,
even if it came from condemned hands. You are still a young man and a
soldier; and since even old age, which is near the grave, knows not
what may strike it before the last hour, youth, which has before it a
long life, must meet with many an adventure. This ring will preserve
you from misfortune, and protect you when the day of judgment comes;
and I tell you that that day is even now on the road through the
Wilderness."
A moment of silence followed; nothing was heard but the crackling of
the fire and the snorting of the horses. From the distant reeds came
the dismal howling of wolves. Suddenly Abdank repeated still again, as
if to himself,--
"The day of judgment is already on the road through the Wilderness, and
when it comes all God's world will be amazed."
The lieutenant took the ring mechanically, so much was he astonished at
the words of this strange man. But the man was looking into the dark
distance of the steppe. Then he turned slowly and mounted his horse.
His Cossacks were waiting at the foot of the height.
"Forward! forward! Good health to you, my soldier friend!" said he to
the lieutenant. "The times are such at present that brother trusts not
brother. This is why you know not whom you have saved, for I have not
given you my name."
"You are not Abdank, then?"
"That is my escutcheon."
"And your name?"
"Bogdan Zenovi Hmelnitski."
When he had said this, he rode down from the height, and his Cossacks
moved after him. Soon they were hidden in the mist and the night. When
they had gone about half a furlong, the wind bore back from them the
words of the Cossack song,--
"O God, lead us forth, poor captives,
From heavy bonds,
From infidel faith,
To the bright dawn,
To quiet waters,
To a gladsome land,
To a Christian world.
Hear, O God, our prayers,--
The prayers of the hapless,
The prayers of poor captives."
The voices grew fainter by degrees, and then were melted in the wind
sounding through the reeds.