Sarmatism

Sarmatism (or Sarmatianism) is a term designating the formation of the dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the szlachta (nobility) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Together with "Golden Liberty," it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranic Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of Slavic lands in antiquity.

The term and culture were reflected primarily in 17th-century Polish literature, as in Jan Chryzostom Pasek's memoirs, and the poems of . The Polish gentry wore a long fur trimmed coat, called a żupan, thigh-high boots, and carried a saber (szabla). Mustaches were also popular, as well as varieties of plumage in men's headgear. Poland's "Sarmatians" strove to achieve martial skill on horseback, believed in equality among themselves ("Golden Freedom"), and for invincibility in the face of the enemy. Sarmatism lauded past victories of the Polish military, and required Polish noblemen to cultivate the tradition. An inseparable element of the costume was a saber called the karabela.

Sarmatia (in Polish, Sarmacja) was a semi-legendary, poetic name for Poland that was fashionable into the 18th century, and which designated qualities associated with the literate citizenry of the vast Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sarmatism greatly affected the culture, lifestyle and ideology of the Polish nobility. It was unique for its cultural mix of Eastern, Western and native traditions. Sarmatism considerably influenced the noble cultures of other contemporary states — Ukraine, Moldavia, Transylvania, Serbian Despotate, Habsburg Hungary and Croatia, Wallachia and Muscovy. Criticized during the Polish Enlightenment, Sarmatism was rehabilitated by the generations that embraced Polish Romanticism. Having survived the literary realism of Poland's "Positivist" period, Sarmatism enjoyed a triumphant comeback with The Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland's first Nobel laureate in literature (1905).

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