Description of Ukraine


The Description of Ukraine, in its original French title Description d'Ukranie, is a book written by the French engineer and military cartographer Guillaume [Le Vasseur de Beauplan], who served the Polish king Władysław IV Vasa from the early 1630s to 1648.
The original 1651 edition of the book covered the city of Kiev, the Cossacks, Ukraine's nobility and its peasants, other cities and environs of the region, the peninsula of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars. Also depicted were the local customs, medicine, and fauna The revised and expanded edition of 1660 additionally covered the climate of Ukraine and the Easter celebrations in the region. Also included was an expanded description of Poland, with an emphasis on the Polish nobility and the Polish military equipment. The revised edition was dedicated to John II Casimir Vasa. At least 26 editions of the book were published from 1651 to 1981.
The importance of this work lies in the discovery of Ukrainian lands, their identity and history for science and the general public in Europe. For the first time, Guillaume de Beauplan described Ukrainian life, as well as the life of the ordinary population of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Beauplan presented the Cossacks as a phenomenon of the revival of chivalry in the Ukrainian lands, in contrast to the Polish propaganda of the time.

History of writing and publishing

Beauplan's background

Starting a new service in the Polish Crown Army as a military engineer, Beauplan was engaged in the construction and reconstruction of fortifications, and the foundation of new cities in the south-south-eastern of Poland, and constantly studied and mapped the surrounding areas. A successful start and a number of merits in the service of the Polish king could not go unnoticed. On 8 March 1637, Beauplan became a courtier of King Władysław IV. On 10 March 1645, he received the royal privilege to publish his maps, and before that he was promoted to the rank of captain of the artillery.

Composition of the original 1651 edition

After returning to France, owing to the general interest in the subject of the Cossack wars, Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan published, in a print run of one hundred copies, a small work entitled Description des contrées du royaume de Pologne, contenues depuis les confins de la Moscovie, jusques aux limites de la Transylvanie. Despite the small circulation, the book was a success. Especially because the book appeared shortly after the famous Battle of Berestechko, in which Polish troops defeated their Cossack and Tatar opponents.
Essar & Pernal found that the original 1651 edition had two parts: introductory materials and Ukraine. Part 2 about Ukraine discussed the following topics: Kiev, the Cossacks, nobles, peasants, other cities and environs, Crimea and the Crimean Tatars, customs, medicine, fauna, and a conclusion. The revised and expanded edition of 1660 had three parts: part 1 had slightly different introductory materials ; part 2 was about Ukraine, with added chapters about climate and Easter celebrations; and a new part 3 was added about Poland.

Revised edition 1660

The success of the first edition of the Description and the constant unrest in the Ukrainian lands encouraged Beauplan and his publisher Jacques Caillou to publish a new second, revised edition of the work in 1660 with an expanded text and the renamed title Description d’Ukranie, qui sont plusieurs provinces du royaume de Pologne, contenues depuis les confins de la Moscovie, jusques aux limites de la Transylvanie. Ensemble leurs moeurs, facons de viures, et de faire la Guerre. This edition actually contains the full text of the 1651 edition with a description of Poland itself, a dedication to king John II Casimir Vasa, and a 'Word to the Reader'. The text of the 1660 edition was repeated in the version published in Rouen in 1661. The book became the best-known and most frequently re-edited and translated 17th-century source that provided a geographical, economic, cultural, societal and demographic description of Ukraine. At least 26 editions in at least nine different languages were published from 1651 to 1981. It has seen ongoing prints ever since.
The text, published in 1651 and repeated by the Dutch cartographer and scientist Joan Blaeu in several editions of his excellent Atlas Maior, appeared in Latin, French, Dutch, and Spanish. However, Blaeu's choice seems to be an exception to the rule, as all publishers and translators have favoured the 1660 version. In addition to the 17th-century editions of the Caius and the present translation, the 1660 text has been published in full or in fragments 48 times in French, English, German, Latin, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian.
The first known information about a copy of the Description d'Ukranie dates back to the early 19th century. The book was kept in Yahotyn in the library of Prince Mykola Repin, governor-general of Little Russia and amateur historian. There were few French originals of the Description in Russia and Ukraine.

Editions of ''Description d'Ukranie''

Essar & Pernal found the following 26 editions of Beauplan's Description d'Ukranie, including the original 1651 edition and versions of it:
  1. Beauplan: Rouen 1651
  2. Beauplan: Rouen 1660
  3. Beauplan: Rouen 1661
  4. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1662
  5. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1663
  6. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1664
  7. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1665
  8. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1667
  9. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1672
  10. Beauplan: Rouen 1673
  11. Churchill: London 1704
  12. Churchill: London 1732
  13. Churchill: London 1744
  14. Churchill: London 1752
  15. Mizler von Kolof: Warsaw 1769
  16. Moeller: Wrocław 1780
  17. Niemcewicz: Warsaw 1822
  18. Ustrialov: St. Petersburg 1832
  19. Niemcewicz: Leipzig 1839
  20. Galitzin: Paris 1861
  21. Antonovich: Kiev 1896
  22. Liaskoronskii: Kiev 1901
  23. Petryshyn: New York 1959
  24. Blaeu: Amsterdam 1967
  25. Wójcik: Warsaw 1972
  26. Isaievych: Lviv 1981

Contents of the work

The book consists of the following parts.
  • Address
  • To the readers
  • To the reader from the publisher
  • A description of Ukraine and the river Boristhenus, popularly called Nipro, or Dnipro, from Kyiv to the sea into which it flows
  • Crafts practised by the Cossacks
  • Ruthenian nobility
  • What are the duties of the peasants towards the lords
  • About Crimea, or the land of Tatarstan
  • The Crimean Tatars
  • About the Cossacks
  • How girls court boys
  • How a peasant can marry a young lady
  • How the wedding takes place
  • Cossack medicine
  • . How a king is elected
  • About noble liberties
  • Customs of the Polish nobility
Beauplan. Description of Ukraine. Comments. Beauplan. Description of Ukraine. Comments.

Quotes from the work

Wedding practices

"The wedding ceremonies are as follows: the young people from both sides are invited, and then they are ordered by the bride and groom to invite all their mutual relatives to attend the wedding, i.e. their wedding party. Each person who fulfils this order is given a wreath of flowers to hang on his or her arm and a list of all the invitees, to whom they go in pairs on the eve of the wedding. The first person to speak, solemnly pronouncing the invitation, holds a wand in his hand. I will not dwell on the description of the dishes and the number of varieties of meat served on the table, but I will only say that the bride is dressed according to their custom as follows: she wears a long brown cloth dress that stretches along the ground, bordered on top with half-silk, half-woolen braid and hemmed in with a whale's whisker that widens it. The head is uncovered, her hair is scattered over her shoulders, revealing only her face, and she wears a wreath of flowers depending on the season. Wearing such a dress, her father, brother or close relative leads her to the church, with a violin, duda or cymbals in front of her. After the wedding, one of her close relatives takes her by the hand and takes her home to the same melody. I will not describe the amusements during the wedding feast; they, though unusual, are in no way inferior to those of other nations. I will only note that they are especially encouraged to be naturally reckless by the fact that on the occasion of weddings and christenings of their children the local lord allows them to brew beer. Thanks to this privilege, they can drink it much cheaper and in larger quantities, for it should be noted that at other times the breweries belong to the lords, and all subjects must buy beer there..."

On the Cossacks

"We still have to tell you, as we promised earlier, how the Cossacks elect their elders and how they cross the Black Sea and march all the way to Anatolia to fight the Turk. This is how they choose their chief: when all the old colonels and old Cossacks who are respected among them gather, each of them casts his vote for the one he considers the most capable, and the one chosen is determined by a majority vote. If the elected one does not want to accept the position, claiming inability, little merit, lack of experience or old age, this does not help him. The only answer is that he really did not deserve such an honour, and then, without hesitation, they immediately kill him as a traitor. Although they themselves are acting in a traitorous manner, as you probably recall from what I said earlier about their customs and habitual betrayals. If the elected Cossack assumes the duties of the elder, he thanks the assembly for the honour, although he is unworthy and unfit for such a position, and then solemnly assures them that he will make every effort to serve everyone in general and each one in particular with dignity, and that he is always ready to lay down his life for his brothers. At his words, everyone claps their hands,
exclaiming: "Glory! Glory!" etc. Then, one by one, according to their rank, they go to bow to him, and the elder gives them his hand, which is a form of greeting. This is how they choose their elder, which often happens in the Wild Fields. They obey him very much. This elder is called a hetman in their language. His power is unrestricted, up to and including the right to behead and put the guilty on the stake. Hetmans are very strict, but they do not start anything without a military meeting called the Rada . The disgrace to which the chief may be subjected makes him very careful in his actions, in particular that no failure should occur when he leads them on a campaign, and that he should prove himself cunning and brave during unforeseen encounters, since for cowardice he is killed as a traitor. A new ataman is immediately elected in the same way as I described above. It is not an easy task to lead them and command them on a campaign, and unhappy is the one who has to do it. In the seventeen years that I have served in this region, all those who have held this government have ended badly..."

Analysis and significance of the ''Description d'Ukranie''

Awareness of the fact that the work of Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan was the beginning of a new era in the study of Ukraine was gradually spreading in science through the use of his Description and maps in solving specific scientific problems. However, Beauplan's works were often used in a consumerist way, rarely covering his legacy as a whole. It was common to extract from Beauplan some data needed to explain certain phenomena, events, and circumstances. Such issues as the history of the Cossacks, military history, ethnography Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, historical geography, topography and cartography with onomastics, iconography and geodesy excursions.
  • Izmail Sreznevsky, the future great Slavist, analysed and commented in detail on several specific accounts of Beauplan: about the ‘Zaporozhian country’, the diet of the Cossacks, the Cossack council, the island of Skarbnitsa Voychna, Kodak, and others. Inspired by romantic tendencies, only a few of Sreznevsky's statements stand up to historical criticism.
  • Apollon Skalkowski remained faithful to Beauplan throughout his decades of scholarship. Starting with his Essays on Zaporizhzhia, in which Skalkowski used the Description to explain topo- and ethnonymy, through his History of the New Sich, in which he substantiated geographical and other realities on the authority of the Description and maps, to numerous historical essays scattered throughout various editions.
  • Peter von Köppen, a well-known statistician, ethnographer, and bibliographer, made full use of the data from Beauplan's Description of Crimean cities. Köppen may be credited with the rather consistent introduction of Beauplan as a historical and geographical source in the so-called Semenov's Dictionary of the Russian Empire.
  • Mykola Markevych put Beauplan in the first place in the list of sources for his History of Little Russia. Markevych relied on the Description and the General Map of Ukraine to define the borders of Ukraine, prove the antiquity of the city of Cherkasy, and cover the issue of peasant duties, the colonisation activities of Polish Hetman Koniecpolski, and the construction of the Kodak fortress. J.-B. Scherer, author of Analysis of Little Russia, he characterised as a plagiarist of Beauplan.
  • Mykola Kostomarov believed that it belongs to the category of sources that 'although very important, require a particularly strict and cautious criticism.'

Primary sources

  • – digital transcription of the 1660 edition in the original French.
  • – modern Ukrainian translation.
  • Vavrychyn M., Holjko O., Dashkevych Ya., « Боплан і Україна» збірник наукових праць. . Lviv: 1998, pp. 16, 22, 34, 47, 49, 51, 61, 65, 295.
  • «Україна. Історія Великого народу» . — https://web.archive.org/web/20141231234738/http://www.litopys.com.ua/encyclopedia/vidatn-storichn-postat-kultura-osv-ta-arkh-tektura/g-yom-levasser-de-boplan-ta-yogo-opis-ukra-ni/
  • Historical Portal of Sumy – http://history.sumynews.com/xvii/1648-1676-ukrajinska-natsionalna-revolyutsiya/item/89-delineatio-generalis-camporum-desertorum-vulgo-ukraina-cum-adjacentibus-provinciis-bono-publico-erecta.html.
  • Universal Library of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — https://web.archive.org/web/20141222212312/http://www.libr.dp.ua/region/Boplan.htm

Literature

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