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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“And Hmelnitski?”
“He is looked for every day from the Crimea with the Tartars; he may have come already. To tell the truth, it is not necessary for you to go to the Saitch; in a little while you will see them here, for they will not avoid Kudák, nor leave it behind them.”
“But will you defend yourself?”
Grodzitski looked gloomily at the lieutenant and said with a calm, emphatic voice: “I will not defend myself.”
“How is that?”
“I have no powder. I sent twenty boats for even a little; none has been sent me. I don’t know whether the messengers were intercepted or whether there is none. I only know that so far none has come. I have powder for two weeks—no longer. If I had powder enough, I should blow Kudák and myself into the air before a Cossack foot should enter. I am commanded to lie here—I lie; commanded to watch—I watch; commanded to be defiant—I am defiant; and if it comes to dying, since my mother gave me birth, I shall know how to die too.”
“And can’t you make powder yourself?”
“For two months the Cossacks have been unwilling to let me have saltpetre, which must be brought from the Black Sea. No matter! if need be I will die!”
“We can all learn of you old soldiers. And if you were to go for the powder yourself?”
“I will not and cannot leave Kudák; here was life for me, let my death be here. Don’t you think, either, that you are going to banquets and lordly receptions, like those with which they welcome envoys in other places, or that the office of envoy will protect you there. They kill their own atamans; and since I have been here I don’t remember that any of them has died a natural death. And you will perish also.”
Skshetuski was silent.
“I see that your courage is dying out; you would better not go.”
“My dear sir,” said the lieutenant, angrily, “think of something more fitted to frighten me, for I have heard what you have told me ten times, and if you counsel me not to go I shall see that in my place you would not go. Consider, therefore, if powder is the only thing you need, and not bravery too, in the defence of Kudák.”
Grodzitski, instead of growing angry, looked with clear eyes at the lieutenant.
“You are a biting dog!” muttered he in Russian. “Pardon me. From your answer I see that you are able to uphold the dignity of the prince and the rank of noble. I’ll give you a couple of Cossack boats, for with your own you will not be able to pass the Cataracts.”
“I wished to ask you for them.”
“At Nenasytets you will have them drawn overland; for although the water is deep, it is never possible to pass—scarcely can some kind of small boat slip through. And when you are on the lower waters guard against surprise, and remember that iron and lead are more eloquent than words. There they respect none but the daring. The boats will be ready in the morning; but I will order a second rudder to be put on each, for one is not enough on the Cataracts.”
Grodzitski now conducted the lieutenant from the room, to show him the fortress and its arrangements. It was a model of order and discipline throughout. Night and day guards standing close to one another watched the walls, which Tartar captives were forced to strengthen and repair continually.
“Every year I add one ell to the height of the walls,” said Grodzitski, “and they are now so strong that if I had powder enough even a hundred thousand men could do nothing against me; but without ammunition I can’t defend myself when superior force appears.”
The fortress was really impregnable; for besides the guns it was defended by the precipices of the Dnieper and inaccessible cliffs rising sheer from the water, and did not require a great garrison. Therefore there were not more than six hundred men in the fortress; but they were the very choicest soldiers, armed with muskets. The Dnieper, flowing in that place in a compressed bed, was so narrow that an arrow shot from the walls went far on to the other bank. The guns of the fortress commanded both shores and the whole neighborhood. Besides, about two miles and a half from the fortress was a lofty tower, from which everything was visible for forty miles around, and in which were one hundred soldiers whom Pan Grodzitski visited every day. Whenever they saw people in the neighborhood they gave signal to the fortress immediately, the alarm was rung, and the whole garrison stood under arms at once.
“In truth,” said Grodzitski, “there is no week without an alarm; for the Tartars, sometimes several thousands strong, wander around like wolves. We strike them as well as we can with the guns, and many times wild horses are mistaken for Tartars.”
“And are you not weary of living in such a wild place?” asked Skshetuski.
“Even if a place were given me in the chambers of the king, I would not take it. I see more of the world from this place than the king does from his windows in Warsaw.”
In truth, from the walls an immense stretch of steppes was to be seen, which at that time seemed one sea of green—to the north the mouth of the Samara; and on the south the whole bank of the Dnieper, rocks, precipices, forests, as far as the foam of the second Cataract, the Sur.
Toward evening they visited the tower again, since Skshetuski, seeing for the first time that fortress in the steppe, was curious about everything. Meanwhile in the village
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