The Greatest Diss in History: The Sultan-Cossack Correspondence

Ishaan Busireddy

Insults are a common sight–or sound–in everyday life. From the playground to presidential debates, insults serve as the verbal epitome of frustration and spite. These often intentionally and unintentionally comedic jests appear to contrast with how we envision the past as an era with courtly etiquette. However, even within this fancy framework, scorching and hilarious jibes slip through the cracks and spice up history. Exchanged verbally and in a written form between political rivals and even wartime adversaries, these insults play a unique role in deciphering bygone eras’ popular sentiments, language, and diplomacy itself.

Insults are a common sight–or sound–in everyday life. From the playground to presidential debates, insults serve as the verbal epitome of frustration and spite. These often intentionally and unintentionally comedic jests appear to contrast with how we envision the past as an era with courtly etiquette. However, even within this fancy framework, scorching and hilarious jibes slip through the cracks and spice up history. Exchanged verbally and in a written form between political rivals and even wartime adversaries, these insults play a unique role in deciphering bygone eras’ popular sentiments, language, and diplomacy itself.

Among the greatest of these “disses,” as we would call them today, are the Correspondence between the Ottoman Sultan and the Cossacks. In the late 1600s under the reign of Sultan Mehmed IV, various conflicts and skirmishes sprouted between the Ottoman Empire and their rivals, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially over the contested territory of Ukraine. In these lands lived the Cossacks, a group of frontier people that originated from many different cultures, ultimately coalescing into an East Slavic Orthodox Christian culture. Inhabiting the Western Steppe, the Cossacks drew from previous inhabitants and continued a migratory and militarized way of life, earning recognition as excellent warriors and cavalrymen. Prizing freedom, Cossacks navigated the turbulent struggle between the Russians, Ottomans, and Poland-Lithuania on their own terms, fighting to protect their sovereignty against all odds. As Poland-Lithuania and the Ottomans battled for control of the Western Steppe in the 1660s and 1670s, both aimed for the subjugation of the Cossacks. Divided into many sub-groups or “Hosts,” some Cossacks aligned with either party. However, other Cossacks warded off both powers and preserved for total freedom. The Zaporozhian Cossacks comprised the core of this faction, and they had previously successfully raided the famed Ottoman capital, Constantinople, some decades prior in 1620. With this raiding background, the Zaporozhian Cossacks would continue to harass Ottoman forces from the untamed Polish-Ottoman border regions for decades to come. 

During the 1600s, the Zaporozhian Cossacks supposedly defeated Ottoman forces in at least one decisive battle. A series of letters, known as the “Correspondence between the Sultan and Cossacks” allegedly displays the Ottoman Sultan and Cossacks’ responses to this battle. The first of the letters comprises of the Ottoman Sultan listing out several of his titles and unleashing a monologue of almost ludicrous self-praise, including “an angel of God,” “great protector of Christians,” and varying titles of different lands such as Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, and Upper and Lower Egypt; some of these lands and titles reflected ancient empires and establish a connection to Near Eastern antiquity. The Ottoman Sultan, generally identified as Mehmed IV, warns the Cossacks, urging them to, in some version, not heed the “Polish boy”--the King of Poland. Otherwise, the Sultan warns the Cossacks to cease raids into his territory. This letter, although not insulting in and of itself, demonstrates diplomatic correspondence of the time, and Age of Absolutism ideas that powerful monarchs had the right to demand perceived lessers’ subjugation.

Yet, the response that the letter drew from the Cossacks, told a rather different story. The Zaporozhian Cossacks replied with a crafty disparagement. Illustrating comparisons to the devil himself, the Cossacks go on to–in direct mockery of the Sultan’s many titles–describe him as the performer of many menial jobs for his various, mostly Christian, multinational subjects: “You busboy of Babylonians, mechanic of Macedonians, beerbrewer of Jerusalem, goatskinner of Alexandria, swineherd of Upper and Lower Egypt, pig of Armenians, goat of Tatars.” Such offenses have rarely been found in historical communication with figures of such rank as the Ottoman Sultan. Yet, given the circumstances in which Christians, even their leaders, across Europe abhorred the Ottomans for their apparent theft of Christian lands and oppression of Christian subjects–a controversial aspect of Ottoman history; for example, although the Ottomans largely granted religious freedom, they unilaterally converted Christian religious sites into mosques and forced Christian families to give up their sons to the Ottoman army through the Devshirme system. Nevertheless, followed by many other searing insults, the mockery of the Sultan’s titles serves to critique his empire’s overexpansion and create a sense of solidarity among the Cossacks and their fellow Christians under Ottoman rule. Bolstering the Cossacks’ validity as freemen and liberators, the Cossacks’ statements also undermine the Sultan’s authority, further degrading him with the use of vulgar language and the definitive rejection of his proposal. These attributes of the text not only gravely offend the Sultan but also exemplify Cossack culture’s rough and free-spirited demeanor as well as demonstrate European Christians’ attitudes towards the Ottomans. It must be noted that different versions of the letters exist, having been translated and altered by editors from Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. Moreover, the authenticity of the text has been called into question given the absurdity of its insults and contrast with other letters from the Cossacks to Sultans in addition to uncertainty regarding the authors and recipient Sultan. Yet, the central themes of the letters carry through each version, and regardless of the specific subjects of the correspondence, still signify prevalent political and cultural attitudes; the letters’ massive popularity has endured across centuries, exploding once more during the Russian-Turkish conflict in Syria. Regardless of their dubiousness–common to historical texts–the correspondence contains what many consider the “Greatest Diss in History.”