One thing leads to another. Today's three videos started with one I found which posed a mystery. The music sounded Russian, but the provider said it was a Cossack choir singing. What Cossack choir? Who? There is a title on screen in Cyrillic. It took a while but I found out that it is the Kuban' Cossack Choir in concert. And what is Kuban'? It's a region of southern Russia near the Black Sea, east of Crimea, the northern two-thirds of which is steppes, which have been the haunts of Cossacks which split off from the Dnieper Cossacks which sprang from the Ukrainian Cossacks, AKA the Zaporozhian Host. Ah.
The first song, sung by the cute girl, is Russian nonetheless. Not a Cossack song, it's a WWII Russian song of a woman's longing for her lover who is at war. I haven't figured out anything about the second song yet.
So that video got me thinking about Cossacks. I looked about for more cossack-related videos. When I found the one coming up I didn't know what it was at first. I skipped over it. But later I found a painting that explained the video.
The painting is the "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire", painted by Russian artist Ilya Repin in 1891. It's set in 1676 and shows the Ukrainian Cossacks, with the aid of a scribe, composing a letter to the leader of the Ottoman Empire. They had just defeated the Ottomans in battle, but Bush-like, the Sultan had called upon them to surrender anyway. The Cossacks replied with a letter that went like this, according to the Wikipedia article:
Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!
O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.
You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!
So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won't even be herding Christian pigs. Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!
The video, leads off from the painting.
Finally, sheer Cossack dance, from a film about the Virsky Ukrainian dance company.
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