New video up on the YT, a quick rant about how Jetman has a glaring flaw I never see anyone mention.

It's the beginning of the 8th chapter of  Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s biography written by Wojciech Rogacin.

Zelenskyy as an otaman? Being the president of Ukraine he should be either a kish otaman or even a hetman, I think. 😉 And the fun part is, Zelenskyy comes from Zaporizhzhia (this English spelling drives me crazy!) so he truly has a legitimate right to be a leader of the Zaporizhian Sich! 😊 Yet, I really don't like the first hetman of the Cossack state, Bohdan Khmelnytsky (this English spelling again...) as a historical figure. For some/many Ukrainians he's a hero. To me, he is not. Maybe I'm biased due to my nationality but I believe he did more harm than good to Ukraine. As a consequence of his uprising the eastern Ukraine was submitted to Russia! I dare say, being a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was probably better...

Cossack society

'Cossacks lived at first in settlements of tents made of hides, reminiscent of the nomadic iurty, though as their way of life stabilized they began to build wooden or clay houses (kuren) grouped in a stanitsa, a village or fortified camp. They would use islands or even churches as strongholds to which they could retire with their flocks if attacked. They practiced a mixture of primitive democracy and ruthless authoritarianism, characteristic of communities that live in a highly vulnerable environment and whose members are dependent on each other to survive in it. They were intensely proud of their status as "free men" and were prepared to defend their volia (liberty) to the utmost. At the same time, in preparing and conducting military campaigns, they obeyed their leaders implicitly, and indiscipline was harshly punished, sometimes even with the death penalty. With the passage of time their institutions became more elaborate, but the basic unit remained what it had long been in the steppe: the krug, or circle, which was a gathering of all the members of a band or army unit. It elected their leader (hetman on the Dnieper; ataman on the Don) and took decisions on the most important affairs, whenever possible by consensus rather than by voting. The Army Circle in Cherkassk was the nearest thing the Don Cossacks possessed to a supreme sovereign body: it would conduct negotiations with foreign envoys, conclude alliances, and declare war or negotiate peace. It would also elect the army ataman, who was military leader and head of the administration. Until the late seventeenth century or so, the Cossacks despised agriculture as unworthy of free men, and in any case futile in such a vulnerable environment. They were thus compelled, like all nomads, either to seize agricultural produce or to trade in order to purchase it. They would sell fish, meat, hides, or honey, but they would also attack and plunder merchant ships, especially on the Caspian, and sometimes even attempt raids on shore settlements to capture goods, produce, or slaves.'

Russia and the Russians, by Geoffrey Hosking

1918-Hetman government of Ukraine

Hetman government. The antisocialist Ukrainian government formed after the coup d'état of Gen Pavlo Skoropadsky in Kyiv on 29 April 1918, during which the congress of the conservative All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners proclaimed Skoropadsky hetman of Ukraine. This coup was backed by the generals of the German and Austrian armies that occupied Ukraine after the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and by former tsarist officers.

Ukrainian HETMAN Release Official Music Video for 'White Threads, Black Needles'

Ukrainian Metal band HETMAN released 5th full-length album Black Heart on December 9th, 2022. Today band released the official music video for “White Threads, Black Needles”, you can watch it below. Band comments:“Life has a great variety of colours and shades. And there are two ways to make it better.One way is just to enjoy your life, where your family and close ones are near and healthy.…

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Something I really love about queerness is how somebody's sexuality merges and bleeds into their gender.

I think for some, it can be, in part, a reclamation of the idea of being punished for not truly being your gender or not being enough as-is. A lesbian who's punished for not being a "woman" by cishet society can reclaim themself by declaring they aren't a woman but a lesbian, lesbiangender, in short.

Queerness in any capacity is often (though not always and not across-the-board) punished as a failure in some way. You're a second-class man or woman, a second-class person, depending on many factors. Reclaiming that can be really relieving and cathartic

The Cossack Hetmanate after the Khmelnytsky uprising, 1648.

"None of us will allow our Ukraine to end. That's why when it comes to ending the war, we always add – on our terms. That's why next to the word "peace," the word "just" always sounds. That's why in future history, next to the word Ukraine, the word "independent" will always stand." - Volodymyr Zelenskyy [x]

Canon Zenith from the Exalted’s Castebook ft Theo ~

ТHЕ PETER-MAZEPA ALLIANCE came to а sudden end in the autumn of 1708, at the height of the Great Northern War (1700-1721) fought Ьу Muscovy and Sweden, assisted Ьу their respective allies, in the Baltics. At the start of the war, Sweden appeared to have the upper hand. Ater defeating Muscovy's аІІу Augustus the Strong of Poland and forcing him to step down, the young and ambitious king of Sweden, Charles ХІІ, began his march on Moscow. Peter was in retreat, using scorched-earth tactics to slow his enemy's advance.

Such destructive measures exacerbated the old grievances of the Cossack elites, pushing them away from Peter and toward Charles. The Cossack col­onels had complained for years to Mazepa about Peter's use of Cossack egiments outside the Hetmanate, especially to dig canals in and around St. Petersburg, the future capital of the Russian Empire, which the tsar had founded in 1702. There the Cossacks died like flies from cold and disease. Moreover, Peter's introduction of new taxes and administrative reforms threatened to turn the Hetmanate into а regular province of the Muscovite state, not its privileged enclave. АІІ that, argued the colonels, violated the protectorate agreement concluded Ьу Bohdan Кhmelnytsky with Muscovy.

Mazepa corresponded with the Polish allies of Charles ХІІ and explored his foreign-policy options but refused to act. Only when the Swedish king decided to make а detour to Ukraine on his way to Moscow, and the tsar refused to help with any troops-Mazepa was supposed to defend the Het­manate on his own and burn the towns and villages in Charles' s path-did the hetman yield to the demands of the colonels and switch sides. Muscovy was not performing its primary function-the defense of the Hetmanate ­under the numerous agreements with the Cossack hetmans. It was time to think of another option even in Left-Bank Ukraine. The Cossack officers began to study the conditions of the fifty-year-old Union of Hadiach. In November 1708, with а group of trusted courtiers and а small detachment of Cossacks, Mazepa left his capital of Baturyn and joined the advancing army of Charles ХІІ.

(…)

The battle for the loyalty of the Cossacks and the inhabitants of the Het­manate had begun. It was carried on mainly through proclamations issued by Peter, to which Mazepa responded in kind. The so-called war of manifes­tos lasted from the fall of 1708 to the spring of 1709. The tsar accused Maz­epa of treason, calling him а Judas and even ordering that а mock order of St. Judas be prepared for awarding to Mazepa once he was captured. Mazepa rejected the accusations. Like Vyhovsky before him, he regarded relations between the tsar and the hetman as contractual. As far as he was concerned, the tsar had violated the Cossack rights and freedoms guaranteed to Bohdan Кhmelnytsky and his successors. His loyalty, argued the hetman, was not to the sovereign but to the Cossack Host and the Ukrainian fatherland. Mazepa also pledged his loyalty to his nation. "Moscow, that is, the Great Russian nation, has always been hateful to our Little Russian nation; in its malicious intentions it has long resolved to drive our nation to perdition," wrote Maz­epa in December 1708.

____________________________

Serhii Plokhy. The Gates of Europe

Large republics look funny one dynastic map mode

Me looking at the arts of "Poland in Polish clothes!!" - and it's Ukrainian. Especially that hat.

Like,

This is Bohdan Khmelnitsky with his kozaks - and if I'm not mistaken, behind him is a Polish hussar.

It's genuinely hard to tell for sure who influenced whom - ofc I understand fashion could not have been spread only on one territory - but... I'm still a bit sad. It would be more correct to call such a hat Polish-Ukrainian

I find it funny how in English “queen” can mean a gay man but in Polish the same chess piece is literally called a het man

i think we can all agree that items marketed towards straight men are cringe when straight men own them, yet they’re infinitely funnier when lesbians buy them

Ukrainian HETMAN Release New Single 'Empty Abyss'

Ukrainian HETMAN Release New Single ‘Empty Abyss’

Ukrainian Metal band HETMAN release Single “Empty Abyss”; song taken from band’s coming 5th full-length album Black Heart, to be released on December 9th, 2022. Listen to “Empty Abyss” here: https://linktr.ee/hetmanukraine Black Heart calls people to humanity and defense of nature – forests, lakes and rivers from pollution and destruction. Black Heart album tracklisting and cover-art are as…

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Warsaw, June 2023, Roman Polanski with a film producer Janusz Hetman. Photos: Marcin Hetman