The Cossacks Reply To The Sultan (Zaporozhtsy) C

The Cossacks' Reply to the Sultan (Zaporozhtsy)', circa 1890, (1939). 'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey', also known as 'Cossacks of Saporog Are Drafting a Manifesto', 19th-century imagining of a supposed historical event of 1676, based on the legend of Cossacks sending an apparently rude and insulting reply to an ultimatum from Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire. 'On the right is Taras Bulba (in a white cap), the hero of Gogol's tale of the same name; on the left is Andrei, Taras Bulba's son; almost in the centre sits Ataman (Chief) Serko with a pipe in his mouth'. Ilya Repin (1844-1930) took nearly 20 years to paint the picture, for which Tsar Alexander III paid him 35,000 rubles, at the time the greatest sum ever paid for a Russian painting. In the collection of The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia. From "The Russian State Museum". [State Art Publishers, Moscow and Leningrad, 1939]Artist Il'ya Repin. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)