In 1884, Henryk Sienkiewicz released onto this world a terrible little product of his imagination: Jurko Bohun, a man chronically obsessed with sucking the most out of any guy ever. Obsessive, emotionally volatile and immature, impulsive and violent, yet also fiercely loyal, stupidly brave, passionate, direct, and well-spoken.
It's a bit of a horrific thing to say that you see much of your own vices in an absolutely batshit 17th century Ruthenian horseman who built his reputation tearing men apart with horses and proceeded to relentlessly pursue his uninterested childhood crush across an entire country.
But it would be a lie for me to say I don't see myself in some of his awfulness.
Bohun's theatrics and the sheer intensity and instability of his emotional responses feel familiar. There's a kinship in feeling your own kneejerk responses, passions, latent hurts and resentments, paranoid projections, all running loose with no way to reign them in. A deep unhappiness that's made into everybody else's problem.
I just get him, man. We get each other. We connect. He deserved to get his ass beat more than he did. <3
"Żeby ja ciebie nie pokochał, byłby ja wolny jak wiatr w polu i na sercu swobodny, i na duszy swobodny, a sławny jak sam Konasewicz Sahajdaczny."
"[...] that if I’ve been any kind of curse to you, then you’re my bad luck and my misfortune too. If I didn’t love you, I’d be as free as the Steppe wind! Free in my heart and soul and caring about nothing except my Cossack glory!"
"O zdrajcy! o wraża krew przeklęta! Dobry wam był kozak, druh był i brat, do Krymu z nim chodzić, dobro tureckie brać, łupem się dzielić. Ej, hołubili i synkiem zwali, i dziewkę przyrzekli, a teraz co? Przyszedł szlachcic, Laszek cacany, i ot, kozaka, synka i druha odstąpili — duszę wydarli, serce wydarli, innemu donia, a ty choć ziemię gryź, ty kozacze, terpy, terpy!"
"Oh, you wretched, lying beasts, your cursed Lach blood! So the Cossack was good enough for you when it came to fighting, to riding out to raid Crimea and share the spoils! Then, he was your cherished brother! Your mother called him her beloved son! You promised him the girl and his happiness! And now what? Along comes some charming little noble, some pretty-faced Lach, and what are all your promises good for? What happens to your Cossack brother? You cast him aside, tear his soul from his body, tear his heart from his chest—! The girl is for another, let the Cossack choke on the tatters of his own heart! Ah, hellish agony! It’s all hellish agony!"
As a character in a novel with a very overt sociopolitical purpose (that being increasing nationalist/patriotic sentiment among Poles during a time when the Polish state did not exist), Bohun is limited in some ways by the narrative. He is a character, a man, an individual, yes, but he's also a representative of a specific group that has had a complex and varying relationship with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Even so, he's kind of a walking tragedy. An orphan with no knowledge of his parents or his lineage in a society and time period where bloodline is everything, he's keenly aware of what he isn't as much as what he is. He may be an ataman (a Cossack-of-rank, so to speak, with subordinates at his disposal), a famous warrior, the subject of countless minstrels' songs, dressed opulently with immense wealth to his name, a man so respected that thousands follow him without hesitation... but he is not a nobleman, titled, educated, Catholic, Polish.
Even as he terrorizes people, gives little thought to killing and looting, and loses his shit at the slightest provocation, there's always the thought in the back of my head that this is a man who feels alienated and desperately craves a sense of approval or belonging. His reactions are particularly intense because a lot of times, they're in response to what he views as catastrophy. In one day, he goes from feeling as if he has some semblence of family and home to feeling as though all his youth was a farce based on his utility to them. One hiccup that he could not have predicted leads to hysterics that lose him the faith of hundreds of his own men—something he has spent most of his life earning.
It's not that he doesn't deserve what he gets but rather that... god, what a fucking hand to be dealt with and what a guy to have to play it.
Wówczas wzrok jego napotkał parę oczów, które wpijały się w niego chciwie, a były to czarne źrenice jak węgiel i tak złowrogie, że rozbudzony już zupełnie pan Zagłoba pomyślał w pierwszej chwili, że to dyabeł na niego patrzy — i znów przymknął powieki i znów je prędko otworzył. Owe oczy patrzyły wciąż uporczywie — i twarz wydała się znajomą: nagle pan Zagłoba zadygotał do szpiku kości, oblał go zimny pot, a po krzyżach przeszło mu aż do nóg tysiące mrówek.
Poznał twarz Bohuna.
Fighting his way out of this awful nightmare he finally managed to get some light between his parted eyelids only to find another pair of eyes—hot as coals, hungry and glowing with a terrifying joy—that stared down into his own. He read so much hatred, such dark malevolence, and such a cold anticipation of vengeance in that unmoving gaze that, at first, he thought it was the Devil who was looking at him.
“Ave Satanas,” he muttered, gripped by sudden terror, but there was no way for him to lift his hand for the sign of the cross that might dispel this awful apparition.
He closed his eyes quickly blinked them and opened them again, but the nightmare vision hadn’t gone away. Those hungry eyes kept staring. The dark face behind them seemed terribly familiar.
He recognized Bohun.
Fun facts:
"Ruthenian" referred to (usually Eastern Orthodox) people from the eastern regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; in modern day, these regions are parts of Belarus and Ukraine (the latter being where Bohun is from).
Zaporozhian Cossacks held a very particular role in the Commonwealth. Those who pledged service to the Crown were given privileges that the common man was not, differentiating them from the peasantry despite not necessarily belonging to the szlachta (Commonwealth nobility). This status became more precarious and more coveted over time, and its preservation in the face of a wary and unsympathetic nobility was one cause of Cossack rebellions.
Bohun was very (very) loosely inspired by a real figure, the Cossack colonel Ivan Bohun, who went on to become a Ukrainian folk hero.
Here's a blinkie for getting this far! :^)
Unfortunately, if any of this has piqued your interest and you are not fluent in Polish, I cannot really recommend either of the major translations of With Fire and Sword as they are both flawed in different aspects. As for what those aspects are, I have no fucking idea, actually, as I use a combination of the film, the original Polish novel, and the frankentranslation to get my fill of this series.
Which! Brings me to the most promising option here! There does exist a frankentranslation of the two, mashed together to get the best possible experience, that I think does a solid job. I forget who did it exactly, but it was one of the kind folks in the tumblr-localized OiM fandom.
That said, the formatting is a little bit wonky. I'm currently prettying up the frankentranslation with some of my own tweaks (as I am actually fluent in the language) here and there. When it's done (seeing as the Trilogy is public domain, afaik), I'll be sure to post a link somewhere on here! <3
