Similar patterns of activity, stagnation and mythologisation can be tracked with other aspects of Polish Sarmatian culture. First comes the actual heroic era… and later the great fairy tale. In literature, the example of the early, heroic Sarmatism, free of any complexes, was written about by Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a 17th-century soldier, nobleman and diarist. Pasek was a chronicler of the Sarmatian ethos in its prime. His writings, Memoirs, are one of the greatest treasures of Polish literature, influential on Adam Mickiewicz and other Romantics.
Imagine a bad-ass version of Samuel Pepys, who fights in epic cavalry battles, desecrates the corpses of fallen enemies, and shares practical advice about ransoming prisoners. Pasek's style is rough, full of swearing and Latin interpolations, particular for this era of Polish prose. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
My favourite part is the one about Sarmatians on a trip to the theatre. During the reign of King Jan Sobieski, his wife brought many of her French countrymen to the Warsaw royal court. They were treated better than visiting Polish noblemen, who started to hold a grudge against these foreign dandies. The trendy foreigners decided to stage an amateur theatre play, a way of celebrating a recent victory by the French king, who had captured an Austrian emperor in battle. It’s likely that the very idea of theatre was unclear to Sarmatian nobles. They just heard that the theme of the play was war. Perhaps that’s why they brought their weapons with them.
Still, the Poles were polite and sophisticated enough to refrain themselves from making noise with pistols and such. They carried in their nice reflex bows, which, together with the sabre, were considered noblemen attributes, like the modern smartphone or watch. In the scene in which the emperor was taken hostage, one Pole, armed with a reflex bow, shouted: ‘Kill him! He will seek revenge!’ and shot an arrow from the first row. He didn’t miss. Some say that he just didn’t like the acting, while others say that the acting was too convincing and he got carried away. His companions followed in his footsteps though, pouring down missiles, and soon most of the French actors had either fled or lay dead on the stage. That’s what I call realism!
Another writer who contributed to Polish Sarmatism, Henryk Rzewuski, was a different cat. His Memoirs of Soplica, published in 1839, aimed at bringing memories of a lost homeland to Polish emigrants. Rzewuski’s writings are still considered to by a great portrait of Sarmatian culture in the late 18th century, their mentality and daily life.