Vienna Letter to Sultan Mehmed IV Avji from Ukrainian Cossaks in Chyhyryn

Abstract

The article explores the genesis of writing, as well as the problem of spreading a semi-legendary message called "Letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish sultan." The study of "correspondence of the Cossacks with the Sultan" has a long historiographical tradition, in particular, the Russian historian and literary critic M. Kagan has developed 9 manuscript lists of this correspondence. The first "Letter of the Cossacks…" in the Old Ukrainian language was published in 1843 by Mykola Markevych. The author studies the issue of the appearance of Chyhyryn's "Letter of the Cossacks from Chyhyryn to the Turkish Sultan" in Vienna in 1683 in the form of a "flying leaf", which had a specific historical basis. It is known that the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, trying to prevent the recruitment of Cossacks to the army of the King of the Commonwealth Jаn III Sobieski, sent letters to Ukraine and the Zaporozhian Sich with a call to submit to the sultan or khan. The researcher concluded that this "leaflet" served a dual patriotic and propagandistic function: first, it raised the morale of the defenders of Vienna, and, secondly, influenced the Cossack officers of Ukraine to support the anti-Ottoman coalition of Christian European states. In addition, the army of the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa remembered very well the exhausting Chyhyryn campaigns of 1677 and 1678 to Ukraine, which became good training for the Ottoman Empire before the campaign in Vienna, Austria. A new Polish language version of the "Letter of the Cossacks…" from the archives of Poland is introduced into scientific circulation.