Good article. It reminds me of the tidbit I came across in The Cossacks, that there were Scots in the Cossack ranks. (Along with Spaniards, Frenchmen, a few Englishmen, etc...)
Yeah, the cossacks were quite a fascinating lot. I've been reading a couple of Yahoo lists, one called Pan Mark and another called Czarnieckiego, and the cossacks have been coming up a good deal on both. The extent to which their historiography plays into a lot of current international tensions (Russia/Poland/Ukraine/Belarus) makes it all the more interesting (if much less clear).
(Sorry, no cossack icon--one with swords and horses will have to do...)
I've been reading about Cossacks this last year or so because I have a notion to write about them. But my interest in them goes back to when I was in high school reading Harold Lamb's stories about Khlit, the old Cossack who wandered all over central Asia after he got too old to ride with the Zaparozhian host.
Indeed it is! I was looking for Irn Bru images a while back, and I ran across that. Rarely has an entry been more apt for it. :-)
The Scots *do* get everywhere. Even before I became a nut about Scotland, I knew that Scots had a strong connection with France and that the Kings of France had had Scottish regiments in their personal guard. And that in the 17th century there was a strong Scottish contingent in the Swedish army.
I can't, off the cuff, find the details on one of my favourite stories, but it was about an Austrian field marshal meeting a Turkish pasha to negotiate a truce in the Balkans and discovering that they had known each other as boys in Aberdeen. :-)
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winterbadger) wrote2009-09-10 08:04 am
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(Sorry, no cossack icon--one with swords and horses will have to do...)
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Goodness, the Scots are everywhere...
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The Scots *do* get everywhere. Even before I became a nut about Scotland, I knew that Scots had a strong connection with France and that the Kings of France had had Scottish regiments in their personal guard. And that in the 17th century there was a strong Scottish contingent in the Swedish army.
I can't, off the cuff, find the details on one of my favourite stories, but it was about an Austrian field marshal meeting a Turkish pasha to negotiate a truce in the Balkans and discovering that they had known each other as boys in Aberdeen. :-)
But here's a book that might be right up your allee. :-)