Author: Thomas Fleming

Sienkiewicz has set  his narrative in the most troubled period of Polish history. This is not one of the historical subjects I know at all well and will content myself with a brief comment that will probably do as much to distort as to clarify the context. From today’s perspective, Poles frequently comment on the tragedy of their nation, caught between two ruthless imperial peoples, German and Russian.  One might add, that the Swedes to the North were also a threat.  That is a valid way of looking at the situation, but there is another:  Poland was in a good...

I posted this squib on FB  in answer to a discussion of the origin of America’s ongoing ideological crackdown via the media.

Every political regime (or tribal society) known to me imposes, whether consciously or not, its way of thinking on the populace.

Let us first and briefly consider several character portrayals before going on in the next stage to speak of the political dimensions.  I’ll pass over our young hero, who is a somewhat more violent version than Scott’s most heroic characters and look at the variety of tough men portrayed:  Chelmnitski, Bogun, Tugai Bey the Tartar chief, Zagloba and the Prince. Chelmnitsk is the pivot of the action.  He is the soul of the rebellion and the personification of the Ukrainian Cossacks.  The wrong he has suffered from the Polish elite–whose leaders he understands very well–have given him, at least in...