Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan


Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan or William le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French-Polish cartographer, engineer and architect.
Beauplan is best known for his 1648 General Map of Ukraine and other maps of Ukraine, and his 1660 book Description d'Ukranie, first published in 1651 as Description des contrés du Royaume de Pologne, which was republished and translated many times in Western European languages throughout the rest of the 17th century and the entire 18th century.

Career

Beauplan served as artillery captain for the army of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland between 1630 and 1647 or 1648. He was sent to Ukraine where he served under Stanisław Koniecpolski in 1637–1638. He used his architectural skills while in the military. In 1639, he was involved in the rebuilding of the Kodak Fortress. He also built a fortress at Bar, worked on Brody Castle, and structures in Kremenchuk.

''General Map of Ukraine''

In 1639, Beauplan created the first "descriptive" map of Ukraine. He created the General Map of Ukraine in 1648 that had detailed border information. By 1654 he was working in Gdańsk. He created a map with a scale of 1:452,000 and an additional map scaled at 1:1,800,000. Both maps were engraved by Willem Hondius. These maps would go on to be published in Rouen, France and reproduced by Benjamin Cordt. Beauplan published another map of the Dnieper River in 1662.

''Description of Ukraine''

Beauplan wrote the Description des contrés du Royaume de Pologne, which was published in 1651. It was renamed Description d'Ukranie, when the second, revised edition was released in 1660. 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. In the book, Ukraine was described as a territory between Muscovy and Transylvania. At least 26 editions in at least nine different languages were published from 1651 to 1981. It has seen ongoing prints ever since.
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.

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