Ukraine War Day #721: Tucker Carlson And The Khmelnitsky File – Part II

Орлик: Сраженья	Orlik: The battle hasn’t started yet.
Дождемся. Время не ушло	There is still time
Еще поправить можно зло.	Perhaps to fix this.
Разбитый нами, нет сомненья,	Broken by us, without a doubt
Царь не отвергнет примиренья.	The Tsar will not refuse a truce.
Мазепа:	Mazepa:
Нет, поздно. Русскому царю	No, it’s too late, the Russian Tsar
Со мной мириться невозможно.	Would never be able to reconcile with me.
Давно решилась непреложно	My fate was determined
Моя судьба. Давно горю	Long ago. I have burned
Стесненной злобой. Под Азовом	With hidden anger. At Azov
Однажды я с царем суровым	Once with the stern Tsar
Во ставке ночью пировал:	Did I feast in headquarters:
Полны вином кипели чаши,	Our cups were brimming with wine,
Кипели с ними речи наши.	Hot words were exchanged.
Я слово смелое сказал.	My mouth ran away with me.
Смутились гости молодые…	The young guests were upset…
Царь, вспыхнув, чашу уронил	The Tsar, fired up, cast his goblet down
И за усы мои седые	And grabbed me menacingly
Меня с угрозой ухватил.	By my greying whiskers.
Тогда, смирясь в бессильном гневе,	At that time, engulfed in impotent rage,
Отмстить себе я клятву дал;	I vowed to someday get revenge;
Носил ее — как мать во чреве	I carried this anger, like a mother in her womb
Младенца носит. Срок настал.	Carries her infant. The time is here.
Так, обо мне воспоминанье	Thus, he will carry this memory
Хранить он будет до конца.	Of me until the very end.
Петру я послан в наказанье;	I have been sent to punish Peter;
Я терн в листах его венца:	I am the thorn in his laurel crown:
Он дал бы грады родовые	He would give up his native cities
И жизни лучшие часы,	And the best hours of his life,
Чтоб снова как во дни былые	If only he could, as in olden days,
Держать Мазепу за усы.	Grab Mazepa by his whiskers.

Alexander Pushkin, Poltava

Dear Readers:

Continuing my review of this piece by reporter Matvei Malgin. I already explained the essence of what Putin was trying to accomplish by gifting Tucker Carlson with copies of these archives: I think his goal was to push the point that the myth of Ukrainian statehood is just that: A myth. From the medieval point of view, I think Putin proves his point. To me personally, it doesn’t matter so much, since Ukrainian statehood did actually become a real thing after the Bolshevik Revolution. Just because something is recent, doesn’t mean that it never came into being. And Putin can rail all he wants against Lenin and the Bolsheviks, but they did have their reasons for setting things up this way. They could not have foreseen how things could go terribly wrong…

“The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks” – famous painting by Ilya Repin

Pushkin Versus Putin

Actually, now that I think about it, if Tucker actually knew something about Russian history or literature and had been of a mind to debate Putin on the issue, he wouldn’t even need to bring the Bolsheviks into it. He could go back in time to a period just a couple of generations after Khmelnitsky. Namely to the year 1709. He could have rebutted Putin by spontaneously spouting these lines from Pushkin:

Давно замыслили мы дело;
Теперь оно кипит у нас.
Благое время нам приспело;
Борьбы великой близок час.
Без милой вольности и славы
Склоняли долго мы главы
Под покровительством Варшавы,
Под самовластием Москвы.
Но независимой державой
Украйне быть уже пора.

[Mazepa explaining the sitrep to his wife, in Pushkin’s poem Poltava]:

We’ve been plotting this thing for a long time;
And now it’s finally brewing.
It’s the right time now;
The hour of the great battle has arrived.
Not possessing any sweet freedom or glory of our own,
For a long time we were forced to bow our heads
Before the protectorate of Poland,
Or the autocratic rule of Moscow.
But the time has finally arrived
For Ukraine to be an independent state.

Evil Liakhs Came Between Us

Hetman Ivan Mazepa: ”I will betray Russia and establish an independent Ukraine!” [or not…]

But never mind about that, forget Tucker and his missed opportunity to devastate President Putin in a poetry slam (“Sir, you have been served!”). Forget about the traitor Mazepa, and let’s go back to the Khmelnitsky letters. The next letter is one year later (namely, 1649) than the one we discussed previously. At the time Khmelnitsky was working closely with the Russian Ambassador Grigory Unkovsky, who spent the entire spring of that year hanging out with the Cossacks in their Zaporozhian Hetmanate. According to Unkovsky, Khmelnitsky stated the following to him: “«А мы царского величества милости ищем и желаем потому, что с Владимрова святаго крещенья одна наша благочестивая вера с Московским государством и имели едину власть. А отлучили нас неправдой своей и насилием лукавые ляхи».” 

(TRANSLATION: ”And we beg the mercy of the Tsar’s Greatness, and we wish this because since the time of Saint Vladimir’s christening, we have enjoyed a single faith and a single government with the Moscovite state. It was only the crafty Liakhs [=Poles] who came between us using lies and violence to separate us.”)

And the Epistles go on…

[to be continued]