Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire – Ilya Repin (1880-1891)

Mehmed IV, Sultan of the 1676 Ottoman Empire, demanded that the Cossacks submit to Turkish rule. The Cossacks reply, led by Ivan Serko, is one of the finest streams of invective since Rabelais:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!

Appollinaire wrote a versified version of the Cossack’s letter. In Beckett’s edition he wrote in the margin: Better than a Dublin jarvey!