Manchester University Press
1 Where is Sarmatia?
-
Tomasz Grusiecki
Abstract
Chapter 1 asks what it meant for Poland Lithuania to emerge as a cartographic image associated with an ancient barbaric people from the Eurasian steppe—the Sarmatians. Like those of many other early modern nations, Polish Lithuanian elites (and the scholars for whom they were patrons) creatively adapted classical philology and geography to trace the alleged historical continuity of their confederate polity back to classical antiquity. Drawing on authorities such as Ptolemy, Tacitus, Strabo, and Pliny, elites embraced an association of their native land with the Sarmatia of classical geographers—a borderland located between the known world of Europe and the unknown realms of Asia. This chapter tracks how the visual practices of charting the Commonwealth’s geographical outline created not only a shared identity for the otherwise diverse nobility of the Polish Lithuanian union but also a sense of the polity’s longstanding connections to other European peoples. Modern historians and archaeologists have identified the Sarmatians as an Iranian people, but this Orientalizing notion was absent from Polish Lithuanian epistemologies. Thus what we might call the Sarmatization of Polish Lithuanian historical geography in fact supported the Europeanization of the polity’s invented tradition: allegedly its past was as old and rich as that of the Latin and Germanic peoples and was recorded by the same venerable classical authorities who confirmed its unchanged location. This chapter explores how this substitution of an early modern heterogenous society for a mysterious, ancient, and—reportedly—foreign and barbaric people came into being.
Abstract
Chapter 1 asks what it meant for Poland Lithuania to emerge as a cartographic image associated with an ancient barbaric people from the Eurasian steppe—the Sarmatians. Like those of many other early modern nations, Polish Lithuanian elites (and the scholars for whom they were patrons) creatively adapted classical philology and geography to trace the alleged historical continuity of their confederate polity back to classical antiquity. Drawing on authorities such as Ptolemy, Tacitus, Strabo, and Pliny, elites embraced an association of their native land with the Sarmatia of classical geographers—a borderland located between the known world of Europe and the unknown realms of Asia. This chapter tracks how the visual practices of charting the Commonwealth’s geographical outline created not only a shared identity for the otherwise diverse nobility of the Polish Lithuanian union but also a sense of the polity’s longstanding connections to other European peoples. Modern historians and archaeologists have identified the Sarmatians as an Iranian people, but this Orientalizing notion was absent from Polish Lithuanian epistemologies. Thus what we might call the Sarmatization of Polish Lithuanian historical geography in fact supported the Europeanization of the polity’s invented tradition: allegedly its past was as old and rich as that of the Latin and Germanic peoples and was recorded by the same venerable classical authorities who confirmed its unchanged location. This chapter explores how this substitution of an early modern heterogenous society for a mysterious, ancient, and—reportedly—foreign and barbaric people came into being.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xiii
- A note on names xv
- Map xviii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Where is Sarmatia? 30
- 2 How do you dress like a Pole? 57
- 3 Who speaks for Poland? 101
- 4 Where do Polish carpets come from? 147
- Epilogue 194
- Bibliography 203
- Index 237
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xiii
- A note on names xv
- Map xviii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Where is Sarmatia? 30
- 2 How do you dress like a Pole? 57
- 3 Who speaks for Poland? 101
- 4 Where do Polish carpets come from? 147
- Epilogue 194
- Bibliography 203
- Index 237
