Our Notes & References

First edition of these two historico-political works, rare on the market, as we couldn’t trace any copy of either work selling at auction in the last 20 years; further back only 3 copies of the first work in the 1980s-90s, and none of the second. The Chatsworth copy also shows both works bound together.

The list of subscribers in this copy shows a very limited number: only 62.

A former Captain in the Polish Army during the November Uprising (also known as the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31) and Knight of the Polish Military Order, Count Henry Krasinski (1804–76) appears here definitely anti-Russian, targeting esp. Catherine the Great. He dedicated The Cossacks of Ukraine to Abdul Medjid, “Sultan of Turkey and Egypt”, highlighting the historical ties between the Ukrainian Cossacks, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire and suggesting that for centuries, and still in his time, these nations shared “one common enemy”: Russia. As a result, Krasinski presents Ukraine primarily as part of Poland. He recounts the Ukrainian Cossacks’ “piratical expeditions into Turkey” and outlines “their dangerous rebellion (fostered by Russia) in Poland, under Chmielnicki, Zelezniak, and Gonta; and not less formidable rebellions in Russia, under Stenko Razin, Mazeppa, and Pugatchef, [… that] shook that empire to its very foundation.”

He goes on to reveal a handful of striking details about Catherine II’s involvement with Poland, offering accounts of her lovers and what he calls “the victims of her hatred, as also the various diabolical intrigues for which she was so infamously celebrated.” The work concludes with a statistical, historical, and geographical overview of Ukraine, and reflections on “the dark shade of the Ukrainian poetry.”

It is worth noting that the work was published in 1848, a year of upheaval in Europe, as well as the heart of the so-called ‘Great Game’, a struggle for influence between the British and the Indian empires. Krasinski has this geopolitical situation clearly in mind, which may also resonate at points with today’s agenda: “Without being for an instant deceived by the artfully concealed aim of panslavism, which with all its fine words […] intends nothing more than to dismember Turkey and Austria, to erase Poland from the map of nations, to disturb the balance of power, to check British commerce and British influence in the south-east of Europe, as well as in Egypt and Persia, and to endanger the British communications with India for ever in favour of Russia.”

Incidentally, Krasinski emigrated to the UK after the November Uprising and repeatedly affirms his loyalty to the King and to his new homeland in his prefaces.

Gonta is a more unusual work by Krasinski, published later in 1848, and surprisingly dedicated to Brazil’s Emperor Pedro II: a drama set during the Haidamaky (Koliivshchyna) uprising of 1768 against the Polish nobility. It centres on the life and tragic fate of Iwan Gonta (c.1705–68), “a man of middle stature, […] thin, beardless, and feminine in his features”—a former serf of Greek Orthodox faith from near Kyiv who became a leader of the rebellion and a revolutionary hero.

After gathering material from books, Polish exiles, and his own observations in Ukraine, Krasinski first wrote the story in French but found the subject “too horrible for the civilised reader”. He reworked it into a stage play, which he said carries echoes of Macbeth and blends “eastern, southern, and northern imagery”, complete with angels, demons, and even “an Arab in the desert”. This dramatic take on a grim chapter in Polish history ends with Gonta’s sentencing by the pro-Russian Polish authorities, with a final line to raise anti-Russian feelings: “Russia! Vengeance!”

Notably, both works in this volume conclude with sheet music of Ukrainian songs, underscoring the cultural and patriotic significance of music and singing in Cossack tradition.

Provenance

G. Murp…, Edenhall (inscription to title); J. S. G. Simmons, Oxford (booklabel; who gave the book in 1983 to:); Prof. Philip Longworth (1933-2021, historian and writer, esp. on Russian history).