{"product_id":"legends-of-the-ukrainian-cossacks-liudmyla-pytel-9798254481447","title":"Legends of the Ukrainian Cossacks: 25 Heroic Tales of the Zaporizhian Sich: Freedom, Brotherhood, and Unbreakable Spirit","description":"\u003cb\u003eBefore there was an army, there was the Sich.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn an island in the middle of the Dnieper, runaway serfs and outlaws built a fortress. They had no king, no lord, no master. They elected their own leaders, fought their own wars, and answered to no one. When the Ottoman Sultan demanded their surrender, they wrote him a letter so savage it became the most famous insult in European history. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThey called themselves Cossacks - \u003ci\u003efree men\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese \u003cb\u003e25 legends\u003c\/b\u003e are the stories Ukrainians have told about them for centuries. Not the sanitized fairy tales you find in most collections, but the raw, vivid, sometimes brutal oral tradition recorded by ethnographer Dmytro Yavornytsky from the last people who still remembered. Stories of the first oath sworn on Khortytsia island. Of Baida, the prince who traded his palaces for a life on the steppe - and paid for it on a hook in Istanbul. Of Ivan Sirko, who rode into battle seventy times and never lost. Of the blind kobzar poets who kept singing the Cossack memory long after the Russian Empire burned the Sich to the ground. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThere is a line in the Ukrainian national anthem: \u003ci\u003e\"We will show that we are of the Cossack nation.\"\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese are the stories behind that line. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIncludes a historical introduction to the Cossack era and a glossary of Ukrainian terms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Liudmyla Pytel,Mountain Mill Editorial\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798254481447\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 134\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.42lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.29d","brand":"Liudmyla Pytel","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48874693165311,"sku":"9798254481447","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/legends-of-the-ukrainian-cossacks-liudmyla-pytel-9798254481447","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}