Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Tsar of Russia
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Tsar of Russia is an oil painting by Ukrainian painter Ilya Repin.
Event depicted in the painting[edit | edit source]
The painting refers to a historic event in which the Ukrainians sent a reply letter to the Russian Tsar (de facto) Vladimir I Putin demanding that they surrender to Russian rule, despite significant resistance from the Ukrainian Cossacks. There was a lot of sympathy for the Cossacks around the world, and the Ukrainian-born Repin himself said about the Cossacks: “Everything Gogol wrote about them is true! Holy people! No one in the world has held on to freedom, equality and brotherhood like them.” Repin painted the work during a time when Russia was considered the enemy of just about every country apart from Syria, Belarus, Eritrea and North Korea. According to Repin, the Cossacks “defended the whole of Europe” and “laughed to their heart's content at the arrogance of the East”.
Letter from Tsar Putin[edit | edit source]
Letter from Tsar Vladimir I Putin demanding the surrender of the Ukrainians:
I, tsar Vladimir, son of Russia; Father of the Big Brother; Viceroy of Lenin; Ruler of Moscow, Leningrad, Belarus, Donetsk and Luhansk; emperor of emperors; ruler of rulers; an exceptional knight, forever invincible; Unwavering guard of the Grand Duchy of Finland; A creditor chosen by Yeltsin himself; the hope and comfort of Christendom; the victor and great defender of the Chechens - I command you, the Cossacks of Ukraine, to surrender to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to stop bothering me with your counterattacks.
Cossacks reply letter[edit | edit source]
According to the story, the Cossacks' response was a chain of inventive and lewd rhymes that parody the titles mentioned in the Tsar's letter. There are different versions of the letter, but they are similar in style:
From the Ukrainian Cossacks to the Russian Tsar!
You, Russian devil, and the cursed brother and friend of the devil, the secretary of Lucifer himself. What damned knight you are when you can't even slay the mud of the roads to Kyiv with your tanks. The devil shits and your army eats. You, son of a whore, don't make subjects of Ukrainian sons; we have no fear of your army, on land, at sea and on air we will fight you, and our peasants steal your tanks and fuck your mother.
You, Lenin's lackey, Moscow's cart repairman, Stalin's brewer, St. Petersburg's sheepfucker, Donetsk and Luhansk's swineherd, Russian pig, butcher of Bucha, Lukashenko's pimp, Crimean hangman, and fool of the whole world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, fuck your mother!
Thus declare the Zaporozhians, you lowlife. You couldn't even herd the pigs of the Muslims. You with your pre-videotaped announcements from the Ural bunker—but we know the time and own the historic moment; Starlink is in the sky, I'm in the middle of the battle, the day's the same over here as it's over there. We conclude this now because Poland, which you declared your country's eternal nemesis, just gave us twenty new fighterplanes; that's why you can kiss our arse!
Koshovyi otaman Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the whole Ukrainian Host.
