With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕
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Goodwill in the seventeenth century Polish Commonwealth has been stretched thin due to the nobility’s perceived and real oppression of the less well-off members. When the situation reaches its inevitable breaking point, it sparks the taking up of arms by the Cossacks against the Polish nobility and a spiral of violence that engulfs the entire state. This background provides the canvas for vividly painted narratives of heroism and heartbreak of both the knights and the hetmans swept up in the struggle.
Henryk Sienkiewicz had spent most of his adult life as a journalist and editor, but turned his attention back to historical fiction in an attempt to lift the spirits and imbue a sense of nationalism to the partitioned Poland of the nineteenth century. With Fire and Sword is the first of a trilogy of novels dealing with the events of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, and weaves fictional characters and events in among historical fact. While there is some contention about the fairness of the portrayal of Polish and Ukrainian belligerents, the novel certainly isn’t one-sided: all factions indulge in brutal violence in an attempt to sway the tide of war, and their grievances are clearly depicted.
The initial serialization and later publication of the novel proved hugely popular, and in Poland the Trilogy has remained so ever since. In 1999, the novel was the subject of Poland’s then most expensive film, following the previously filmed later books. This edition is based on the 1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin, who also translated Sienkiewicz’s later (and perhaps more internationally recognized) Quo Vadis.
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- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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“You cannot withstand Yeremi,” muttered Stepka.
“You are destroying us and yourself,” added Mrozovetski.
The hetman sprang at them like a tiger. “And who gained Jóltiya Vodi, who Korsún, who Pilavtsi?”
“You!” answered Voronchenko, roughly, “but Vishnyevetski was not there.”
Hmelnitski tore his hair. “I promised the Khan lodgings in the castle tonight!” howled he, in despair.
To this Kulak replied: “What you promised the Khan concerns your head. Have a care lest it drop from your neck; but do not push us to the storm, do not destroy servants of God! Surround the Poles with trenches, put ramparts round your guns, or woe to you!”
“Woe to you!” repeated gloomy voices.
“Woe to you!” answered Hmelnitski.
And thus they conversed, terrible as thunders. At last Hmelnitski staggered, and threw himself on a bundle of sheepskins covered with carpet in the corner of the tent. The colonels stood around him with hanging heads, and silence lasted for a long time. At length the hetman looked up, and cried hoarsely: “Gorailka!”
“You will not drink!” said Vygovski, “The Khan will send for you.”
At that time the Khan was about five miles from the field of battle, without knowledge of what was passing. The night was calm and warm. He was sitting at the tent in the midst of mullahs and agas in expectation of news; while waiting, he was eating dates from a silver plate standing near. At times he looked at the starry heavens and muttered, “Mohammed Rosulla!”
Meanwhile Subahazi, on a foaming horse, rushed in, breathless, and covered with blood. He sprang from the saddle, and approaching quickly, began to make obeisance, waiting for a question.
“Speak!” said the Khan, with his mouth full of dates.
The words were burning Subahazi’s mouth like flame, but he dared not speak without the usual titles. He began therefore in the following fashion, bowing continually—
“Most mighty Khan of all the hordes, grandson of Mohammed, absolute monarch, wise lord, fortunate lord, lord of the tree commended from the east to the west, lord of the blooming tree—”
Here the Khan waved his hand and interrupted. Seeing blood on Subahazi’s face, and in his eyes pain, sorrow, and despair, he spat out the uneaten dates on his hand and gave them to one of the mullahs, who took them as a mark of extraordinary honor and began to eat them. The Khan said—
“Speak quickly, Subahazi, and wisely! Is the camp of the unbeliever taken?”
“God did not give it.”
“The Poles?”
“Victorious.”
“Hmelnitski?”
“Beaten.”
“Tugai Bey?”
“Wounded.”
“God is one!” said the Khan. “How many of the Faithful have gone to Paradise?”
Subahazi raised his arm and pointed with a bloody hand to the sparkling heavens. “As many as of those lights at the foot of Allah,” said he, solemnly.
The heavy face of the Khan became purple; rage seized him by the breast. “Where is that dog,” inquired he, “who promised that I should sleep tonight in the castle? Where is that venomous serpent whom God will trample under my foot? Let him stand before me and give an account of his disgusting promises.”
A number of murzas hurried off for Hmelnitski. The Khan calmed himself by degrees, and at last said: “God is one!” Then he turned to Subahazi. “There is blood on thy face!”
“It is the blood of the unbeliever,” answered the warrior.
“Tell how you shed it, and console our ears with the bravery of the believers.”
Here Subahazi began to give an extended account of the whole battle, praising the bravery of Tugai Bey, of Galga, of Nureddin; he was not silent either of Hmelnitski, but praised him as well as the others—the will of God alone and the fury of the unbelievers were the causes of the defeat. But one circumstance struck the Khan in the narrative; namely, that they did not fire at the Tartars in the beginning of the battle, and that the cavalry of the prince attacked them only when at last they stood in the way.
“Allah! they did not want war with me,” said the Khan, “but now it is too late.”
So it was in reality. Prince Yeremi, from the beginning of the battle, had forbidden to fire at the Tartars, wishing to instil into the soldiers that negotiations with the Khan were already commenced, and that the hordes were standing on the side of the mob merely for show. It was only later that it came to meeting the Tartars by the force of events.
The Khan shook his head, thinking at that moment whether it would not be better yet to turn his arms against Hmelnitski, when the hetman himself stood suddenly before him. Hmelnitski was now calm, and came up with head erect, looking boldly into the eyes of the Khan; on his face were depicted daring and craft.
“Approach, traitor!” said the Khan.
“The hetman of the Cossacks approaches, and he is not a traitor, but a faithful ally, to whom you have pledged assistance not in victory alone,” said Hmelnitski.
“Go pass the night in the castle! Go pull the Poles out of the trenches as you promised me!”
“Great Khan of all the hordes!” said Hmelnitski, with a powerful voice, “you are mighty, and except the Sultan the mightiest on earth; you are wise and powerful, but can you send forth an arrow from your bow to the stars, or can you measure the depth of the sea?”
The Khan looked at him with astonishment.
“You cannot,” continued Hmelnitski, with still more force; “so can I not measure all the pride and insolence of Yeremi! If I could dream that he would not be terrified at you, O Khan, that he would not be submissive at sight of you, would not beat with his forehead before you, but would raise his insolent hand against your person, shed the blood of your warriors, and insult you, O mighty monarch, as well as the least of your murzas—if I could have dared to think that, I should have shown contempt to you whom I honor and love.”
“Allah!” said
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