Polish noble Stanisław Antoni Szczuka (1652–1710) in a representative national Polish outfit. A red kontusz tied with a pas kontuszowy. Underneath a żupan with a low collar. Left hand holds a fur cap with a low band. Characteristic hair and moustache. Unknown artist.Noble Ukrainian Cossack in a yellow żupan and red kontusz.
A kontusz (Polish: kontusz, pl.kontusze; Ukrainian: кунтуш, romanized:kuntush; Lithuanian: kontušas; originally from Hungarian: köntös, lit.'robe') is a type of outer garment worn by the Hungarian and Polish–Lithuanian male nobility. It became popular in the 16th century and came to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth rule via Hungary from Turkey. In the 17th century, worn over an inner garment (żupan), the kontusz became a notable element of male Polish national and Zaporozhian Cossack attire.
The kontusz was a long robe, usually reaching to below the knees, with a set of decorative buttons down the front. The sleeves were long and loose, on hot days worn untied, thrown on the back. In winter a fur lining could be attached to the kontusz, or a delia worn over it. The kontusz was usually of a vivid colour, and the lining was of a contrasting hue. The kontusz was tied with a long, wide sash called a pas kontuszowy.
The kontusz was more of a decorative garment than a practical one. Tradition states that the first kontusze were worn by szlachta who captured them from Ottomans to display as loot, which itself possibly originated from Mongol Haiqing which had openings in armpit.[citation needed]
Throwing kontusz sleeves on one's back and stroking one's moustache was considered to be a signal of readiness for a fight.[citation needed]
In Poland, the kontusz was worn mainly by the nobility, but it was also adopted by the Zaporozhian cossacks when Ukraine and Ruthenia were under Polish rule.
The haydamaks, also haidamakas or haidamaky or haidamaks were Ukrainian Cossack paramilitary outfits composed of commoners, and impoverished noblemen in the eastern part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were formed in reaction to the Commonwealth's actions that were directed to reconstitute its orders on territory of right-bank Ukraine, which was secured following ratification of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with the Tsardom of Russia in 1710.
Żupan is a long lined garment of West or Central Asian origin which was widely worn by male nobles in the multi-ethnic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the Cossack Hetmanate. It was a typical upper class male attire from the late 16th to the first half of the 18th century.
The Zaporozhian Cossacks, also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host, were Cossacks who lived beyond the Dnieper Rapids. Along with Registered Cossacks and Sloboda Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossacks played an important role in the history of Ukraine and the ethnogenesis of Ukrainians.
Bratslav is a rural settlement in Ukraine, located in Tulchyn Raion of Vinnytsia Oblast, by the Southern Bug river. It is a medieval European city and a regional center of the Eastern Podolia region founded by government of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, which dramatically lost its importance during the 19th–20th centuries. Population: 4,872
Sarmatism was an ethno-cultural identity within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility that existed in the time from the Renaissance to the early 18th century. Together with the concept of "Golden Liberty", it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth social elites’ culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranian Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of contemporary Polish lands in antiquity.
Kontush sash was a cloth sash used for girding a kontusz. It was one of the most distinctive items of male dress of Polish and Lithuanian nobility (szlachta) and is a key component of the Polish national costume. In an earlier period, sometimes narrower sashes of fine cloth or silk net were worn, but the wide kontusz sash is specific to the later period. A variant known in Belarus lands is Slutsk Sash.
The delia is a garment worn by male szlachta (nobility) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The delia is similar to a coat or cloak, and was worn over the żupan from the 16th until the early 18th century.
The Zaporozhian Sich was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Cossacks that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, including as an autonomous stratocratic state within the Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years, centred around the Great Meadow region of modern day Ukraine, spanning the lower Dnieper river. In different periods the area came under the sovereignty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, the Tsardom of Russia, and the Russian Empire.
Zaporizhzhia or Zaporozhzhia is a historical region in central east Ukraine below the Dnieper rapids, hence the name, literally "(territory) beyond the rapids".
Registered Cossacks comprised special Cossack units of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Order of Saint Stanislaus, also spelled Stanislas, was a Polish order of knighthood founded in 1765 by King Stanisław August Poniatowski of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It remained under the Kingdom of Poland between 1765 and 1831. In 1831 it was incorporated under the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution (1917).
The Cossack Hetmanate, officially the Zaporozhian Host, was a Ukrainian Cossack state. Its territory consisted of most of central Ukraine and parts of Belarus. It existed between 1649 and 1764, although its administrative-judicial system persisted until 1781.
The Treaty of Hadiach was a treaty signed on 16 September 1658 in Hadiach between representatives of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Zaporozhian Cossacks.
The Polish Baroque lasted from the early 17th to the mid-18th century. As with Baroque style elsewhere in Europe, Poland's Baroque emphasized the richness and triumphant power of contemporary art forms. In contrast to the previous, Renaissance style which sought to depict the beauty and harmony of nature, Baroque artists strove to create their own vision of the world. The result was manifold, regarded by some critics as grand and dramatic, but sometimes also chaotic and disharmonious and tinged with affectation and religious exaltation, thus reflecting the turbulent times of the 17th-century Europe.
The Nalyvaiko Uprising was a Cossack rebellion against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Headed by Severyn Nalyvaiko, it lasted from 1594 to 1596. The second in a series of Cossack uprisings, the conflict was ultimately won by the Crown of Poland, but two years of warfare and scorched-earth tactics employed by both sides left much of right-bank Ukraine in ruins.
A justacorps or justaucorps is a knee-length coat worn by men in the latter half of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century. It is of French origin, where it had developed from a cape-like garment called a casaque. It was introduced into England as a component of a three-piece ensemble, which also included breeches and a long vest or waistcoat. This ensemble served as the prototype for the modern-day three-piece suit. The justacorps itself evolved into the frock coat.
The Wild Fields is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries to refer to the Pontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Western Russia, north of the Black Sea and Azov Sea. It was the traditional name for the Black Sea steppes in the 16th and 17th centuries. In a narrow sense, it is the historical name for the demarcated and sparsely populated Black Sea steppes between the middle and lower reaches of the Dniester in the west, the lower reaches of the Don and the Siverskyi Donets in the east, from the left tributary of the Dnipro—Samara, and the upper reaches of the Southern Bug—Syniukha and Ingul in the north, to the Black and Azov Seas and Crimea in the south.
The shlyakhta were a noble class of Ruthenians in what is now Western Ukraine that enjoyed certain legal and social privileges. Estimates of their numbers vary. According to one estimate, by the mid-19th century, there were approximately 32,000 Ukrainian nobles in the western Ukrainian territory of Galicia, over 25% of whom lived in 21 villages near the town of Sambir. They comprised less than 2% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. Other estimates place the number of nobles at 67,000 people at the end of the 18th century and 260,000 by the end of the 19th century, or approximately 6% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. The nobles tended to live in compact settlements either in villages populated mostly by nobles or in particular areas of larger villages.
A sukmana is a type of traditional coat once worn by peasants in Poland, and some other Central European countries, as well as Hungary. It was particularly common from the 18th to early 20th centuries. It was made from a simple, hand woven wool fabric comparable to russet cloth, and usually retained its natural white or grayish color. The coat was long, with sleeves, and wider towards the lower parts.
The Czamara was a type of outer garment in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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