During Repin's time, the Cossacks enjoyed great popular sympathy. The painting exhibits the Cossacks' pleasure at striving to come up with ever more base vulgarities. The Cossacks, led by Ivan Sirko, replied in an uncharacteristic manner: they wrote a letter, replete with insults and profanities. However, Mehmed demanded that the Cossacks submit to Turkish rule.
The Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host (from 'beyond the rapids', za porohamy), inhabiting the lands around the lower Dnieper River in Ukraine, had defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in battle. Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks is a historical tableau, set in 1676, exploiting the legend of the reply that the Cossacks sent the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV.
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