Balaban
Burdabut
Barabash
Chernota
Bogun
The following names of places are accented as indicated: —
Bakche
Seraí Korovái
Bazalúk
Mírgorod
Bélgorod
Perekóp
Bóguslav
Sekírnaya
Gálata
Sléporod
Hassan Pashá
Volochísk
Kámenyets
Yagorlík
Polish names in ski and vich are adjectives, regularly declined, with masculine and feminine endings. The titles of address Pan, Pani, Panna, refer respectively to a gentleman, a married lady, an unmarried lady. The following are examples: —
Pan Kurtsevich,
Pani Kurtsevichova,
Panna Kurtsevichovna.
These three forms when applied to one family refer to the father, mother, and an unmarried daughter.
The ending in ski is not so complicated; for instance, —
Pan Pototski,
Pani Pototska,
Panna Pototska.
The names in vich denote descent; those in ski, origin in, or lordship over, a place.
Nikolai Pototski, Grand Hetman, captured at Korsún, was Pan Pototski, which means lord of Potok (Potok being the name of the place which he inherited); he was also Pan Krakovski, lord of Krakov (Cracow), because he was castellan of Krakov (Cracow), an office to which he was appointed by the king.
The names of villages which Zagloba mentions as belonging to Podbipienta are curious enough, whether real or invented by the whimsical narrator; as is also the name Povsinoga, which he gives the tall Lithuanian, and which means “tramp.” The villages — taken in the order in which he gives them on page 540 — Myshikishki, Psikishki, Pigvishki, Sirutsiani, Tsiaputsiani, Kapustsiana glowa, Baltupye, are — excluding the first two, the meanings of which are given on page 20 — Crabapple town, Homespunville, Simpletown, Cabbagehead, and Slabtown.
The soup botvinia, mentioned in connection with Podbipienta and Pan Kharlamp, which is made of vegetables and fish in eastern Russia, may be made, it seems, without fish in Lithuania. The word is used figuratively to designate a rustic or stay-at-home villager.
OFFICES AND THINGS.
Balalaika, a stringed instrument used in southern Russia, resembling the guitar.
Cástellan, the chief of a town or city under Polish rule, as well as the district connected with it. The castellan was always a senator, and was appointed by the king.
Chambul, a party of mounted Tartars.
Koshevói, chief of a Cossack camp.
Kurén, a company or group of Cossacks as well as the barracks in which they lived.
Sotnik, a captain of Cossacks. This word is exactly equivalent to “centurion,” and is derived from sto, “one hundred,” with the nominative ending nik.
Stanitsa, a Cossack village.
Stárosta, chief of a town under Polish control.
Starshiní, elders. This word meant for the Cossacks the whole body of their officers.
Telega, the ordinary springless wagon of Russia, smaller than the country wagon in the United States.
Teorbán, or Torbán, a large musical instrument of twenty strings or more.
Voevoda, governor and commander of troops in a province, corresponding to the military governor of modern times. This office was common to the Poles and the Russians of the East or Moscow.
FOOTNOTES:
Footnote 1: The author uses Skshetuski, the family name of his hero, oftener than Yan, his Christian name, prefixing Pan = Mr. in both cases. I have taken the liberty of using Yan oftener than Skshetuski because more easily pronounced in English.
Footnote 2: Tear-trousers.
Footnote 3: Tear-cowl.
Footnote 4: Dog entrails.
Footnote 5: Mouse entrails.
Footnote 6: This is the popular form in Little Russian; therefore it is quoted.
Footnote 7: The right bank of the Dnieper was called Russian; the left, Tartar.
Footnote 8: Hmelnitski is made to apply the title Tsar to the Khan, either to give him more importance in the eyes of the Cossacks or because Tugai Bey was present.
Footnote 9: The author uses sometimes the word vudka and sometimes gorailka. The first is Polish; the second Little Russian. Both mean a liquor distilled generally from rye. When vudka is used it might mean that the liquor was from Poland, and when gorailka that it was of Ukraine origin; but here the words are used indifferently.
Footnote 10: Krívonos signifies “crooked nose;” Prostonos, “straight nose.”
Footnote 11: “Holota” (Nakedness) was used as a nickname in those days to designate a poor nobleman. Abstract nouns were used by the Cossacks also as names; e. g., Colonel Chernota, which means “blackness.”
Footnote 12: City of the Tsar = Constantinople.
Footnote 13: A pun on “Pulyan,” which in Polish means “half Yan,” or John.
Footnote 14: “Hmel,” a nickname for Hmelnitski among the Poles, = “hops.”
Footnote 15: Holota (Nakedness) was often given as a nickname to a poor noble.
Footnote 16: Nicknames given by Hmelnitski to the three Polish commanders.
Footnote 17: Kapustsiani, “of cabbage,” the masculine form of the adjective. Kapustsiana glowa means “a cabbage head; a stupid fellow.” Glowa is the ordinary word for head in Polish, and takes the feminine adjective ending in a: hence Kapustsiana. For explanation of the other names see list of names and places.
Footnote 18: This means, “Everything or nothing;” “Carry the day or go to a monastery.”
Footnote 19: Circassians from the Caucasus.
Footnote 20: Div is a Persian word for “demon” or “evil spirit.” This word meant “a divinity” in times anterior to Zoroaster, and is identical with the root div in our word “divine.” In India and Europe it retained its original signification, and became of evil import only in Persia, in consequence of the triumph of Zoroastrianism.
Footnote 21: “Panowie” is the plural of Pan.
The Deluge
Translated by Jeremiah Curtin
The Deluge (1886), the second volume of The Trilogy, tells the story of the fictional Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth soldier and noble Andrzej Kmicic, while presenting a broad panorama of the Commonwealth during its historical period of the Deluge, part of the Northern Wars. The term Deluge denotes a series of mid-seventeenth-century campaigns in the Commonwealth. It applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, thus comprising the Polish theatres of the Russo-Polish and Second Northern Wars. The term refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theatre of the Second Northern War (1655–1660). In Poland and Lithuania this period is called the Swedish Deluge and the term deluge was popularised by Sienkiewicz with this novel.
The narrative begins with a description of the families living in and around the district of Rossyeni. The oldest and most powerful family are the Billeviches, including Aleksandra Billevich, daughter of the chief hunter of Upita, who has been orphaned and left in the care of the noble families. She is destined to marry Andrei Kmita, whose father was her father’s closest friend. The pair meet and she is at once smitten, particularly as he is a war hero from Smolensk. However, she is wary of his impetuous character and also his nefarious companions, who are almost outlaws and depend on him for their protection from the law.
The first translated edition
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
REMARKS ON PERSONAGES IN “THE DELUGE.”
NOTES.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
&n
bsp; CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLV.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CHAPTER L.
CHAPTER LI.
CHAPTER LII.
CHAPTER LIII.
CHAPTER LIV.
CHAPTER LV.
CHAPTER LVI.
Kmita and Olenka enjoy sleighing together
TO HON. CHARLES A. DANA,
Editor of “The Sun,”
New York.
Sir, — I beg to dedicate to you this translation of a remarkable work, touching a period eventful in the history of the Poles, and the Slav race in general. You will appreciate the pictures of battle and trial contained in these volumes, for you know great events not from books merely but from personal contact. You receive pleasure from various literatures, and from considering those points of character by which nations and men are distinguished; hence, as I think, The Deluge will give you some mental enjoyment, and perhaps turn your attention to a new field of history.
JEREMIAH CURTIN.
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology,
November 25, 1891.
INTRODUCTION.
The wars described in The Deluge are the most complicated and significant in the whole career of the Commonwealth, for the political motives which came into play during these wars had their origin in early and leading historical causes.
The policy of the Teutonic Knights gave the first of its final results in the war of 1655, between Sweden and Poland, since it made the elector independent in Prussia, where soon after, his son was crowned king. The war with Great Russia in 1654, though its formal cause came, partly at least, from the struggle of 1612, in which the Poles had endeavored to subjugate Moscow, was really roused by the conflict of Southern Russian with Poland to win religious and material equality.
The two fundamental events of Polish history are the settlement of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, through the action of the Poles themselves; and the union of Poland with Lithuania and Russia by the marriage of Yadviga, the Polish princess, to Yagyello, Grand Prince of Lithuania.
Before touching on the Teutonic Knights, a few words may be given to the land where they began that career which cut off Poland from the sea, took from the Poles their political birthplace, and gave its name and territory to the chief kingdom of the new German Empire, the kingdom which is in fact the creator and head of that Empire.
Prussia in the thirteenth century extended from the Vistula eastward to the Niemen, and from the Baltic southward about as far as it does at present. In this territory lived the Prussians. East of the Niemen lived the Lithuanians, another division of the same stock of people. West of the Vistula lay Pomorye, now Pomerania, occupied at that time exclusively by Slavs under Polish dominion.
The Prussians, a people closely related to the Slavs, were still Pagans, as were also the Lithuanians; and having a more highly developed religion than either the pre-Christian Slavs or the Germans, their conversion was likely to be of a more difficult nature.
At the end of the tenth and in the beginning of the thirteenth centuries attempts were made to convert the Prussians; but the only result was the death of the missionaries, who seem to have been too greatly filled with zeal to praise their own faith and throw contempt on that of the people among whom they were really only guests and sojourners.
Finally, a man appeared more adroit and ambitious than others, — Christian, a monk of Olivka, near Dantzig. This monk, we are told, had a knowledge of the weak points of men, spoke Prussian as well as Polish, was not seeking the crown of martyrdom, and never made light of things held sacred by those to whom he was preaching. After a few years his success was such as to warrant a journey to Rome, where he explained to Innocent III. the results of his labor. The Pope encouraged the missionary, and in 1211 instructed the Archbishop of Gnezen to aid Christian with his co-workers and induce secular princes to help them.
Christian returned from Rome with renewed zeal; but instead of being helped he was hindered, for tribute and labor were imposed on his converts by the secular power. Since the new religion was coupled with servitude, the Prussians were roused greatly against it.
Christian strove to obtain relief for his converts, but in vain. Then, taking two native followers, he made a second journey to Rome, was created first Bishop of Prussia, and returned again to the field.
The great body of Prussians now considered all converts as traitors. The priests of the native religion roused the people, and attacked those persons as renegades who had deserted the ancient faith and were bringing slavery to the country. They went farther and fell upon Mazovia, whence the propaganda had issued. Konrad, unable to defend himself, bought them off with rich presents. The newly made converts were killed, captured, or driven to deep forests.
Christian turned to the Pope a third time, and implored him to direct against Prussia those Poles who were going to the Holy Land.
The Archbishop of Gnezen was instructed from Rome to make this change, and the Poles were summoned against Prussia for the following year. The crusade was preached also in Germany.
Warriors arrived from both countries in fairly large numbers, and during their presence ruined villages and churches were rebuilt in the district of Culm, where the conversions had taken place mainly. In a couple of seasons the majority of the warriors found their way home again. A second crusade was proclaimed, and men responded freely. All these forces were simply guarding the missionaries and the converts, — a position which could not endure.
Christian, seeing this, formed the plan of founding an order of armed monks in Poland like the Knights of the Sword in Livonia. Konrad gave his approval at once.
The Bishop of Modena, at that time papal leg
ate in Poland, hastened the establishment of the order; for to him it seemed the best agent to bend the stiff necks of idolaters. Permission to found the order was obtained from the Pope, and a promise of means to maintain it from Konrad.
Christian, who had interested Rome and the West in his work, now gave great praise before the world to the Prince of Mazovia, who thereupon rewarded him with a gift of twelve castles and one hundred villages, reserving merely sovereign rights without income. This gift was confirmed to the Bishop of Prussia by Honorius III.
Christian labored so zealously that in 1225 he consecrated twenty-five superior knights in his new order, which received the same rules as the Livonian Knights of the Sword, — that is, the rules of the Templars.
The new knights were called Brothers of Dobjin, from the castle of Dobjin, which Konrad gave them as a residence, adding the district of Leslin near Inovratslav as a means of support.
As soon as the Brothers had settled in their castle, they attacked the Prussians, ruined villages, and brought in plunder. The enraged Prussians collected large forces, and attacked the land of Culm, with the intent to raze Dobjin. On hearing this, Konrad with his own troops and a general levy hastened to the relief of the order.
A bloody and stubborn battle of two days’ duration was fought with great loss on both sides. Konrad, despairing of victory, left the field, thus causing the complete overthrow of the Poles. The surviving Brothers of Dobjin took refuge in the castle, which the Prussians were unable to capture. The order, shattered at its very inception, hoped for reinforcements from abroad; but the Pope at that juncture was sending a crusade to Palestine, and would not permit a division in the forces of the West. The Prussians, elated with victory, plundered at pleasure the lands bordering on their own.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 94