ОБРАЗ КОЗАЦТВА У ТВОРЧОСТІ ФРАНЦІШЕКА РАВІТИ-ҐАВРОНСЬКОГО

Abstract

The article analyses the artistic and historical prose of nineteenth-century writer Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński. In particular, the issues of Cossacks and Cossacks in the author’s work are explored. We have drawn a parallel between the Ukrainian and Polish vision of the problem of Cossack interpretation in literature, and clarified the historical prerequisites of its occurrence on the example of his historical novels, in particular “Pan Hetman Mazepa” and “Na kresach”, as well as scientific and historical works on the Cossacks: “Kozaczyzna ukrainna w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej”, “Historia ruchów hajdamackich” etc. An amateur historian, a Polish Ukrainian is known, among other things, for creating a negative Cossack stereotype in Polish writing. In the Polish historical science of the XVI-XVIII centuries the historiographical image of the Ukrainian Cossacks begins to take shape. The ruins and Cossack wars of the late XVI-XVIII centuries inspired Polish chroniclers to create the stereotype of a Ukrainian barbarian, a cruel and immoral robber. The purpose of such actions was to justify the policy of the Commonwealth and the Polish nobility towards Ukrainians. One of the reasons was the current political situation, which deliberately distorted the Ukrainian-Polish past. At the same time, the influence of the Jagiellonian Idea, which consisted in the idealisation of the Union of Lublin in 1569, in particular in the voluntary unification of the Polish Kingdom, Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ukraine, was significant. Ignoring the Cossacks as the third political people of the Commonwealth ended with bloody and devastating uprisings that weakened the Polish-Lithuanian state and the Cossacks themselves. The campaigns of the Cossacks on the land ruled by the Turkish Sultan, incited the Commonwealth to punitive attacks by the Tatars, and especially to the conflict with Turkey, which the state tried to avoid. Attempts to impose public control on them ended in riots. The situation was also aggravated by the attitude of the nobility, who, despite the merits of the Cossacks before the state, treated them as rebellious peasants. The blame for this should be placed on the elite of the Commonwealth, which failed to solve the problem, and whose actions against the Cossacks had the features of contingency and inconsistency. The problem was also the constant increase in their numbers, interference with the conflict between Orthodoxy and the Union of Brest.