Sarmatism

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Sarmatism (or Sarmatianism; Polish: Sarmatyzm; Lithuanian: Sarmatizmas) was an ethno-cultural ideology within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.^[1] It was the dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility (szlachta) that existed in times of the Renaissance to the 18th centuries.^[1] Together with the concept of "Golden Liberty", it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth social elites’ culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranian Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of contemporary Polish lands in antiquity.^[2][3]

The term and culture were reflected primarily in 17th-century Polish literature, as in Jan Chryzostom Pasek's memoirs^[4] and the poems of Wacław Potocki. The Polish gentry wore a long coat, called kontusz, knee-high boots, and carried a small szabla (sabre) called karabela. Moustaches were also popular, as well as decorative feathers in men's headgear. Poland's "Sarmatians" strove to achieve martial skill on horseback, believed in equality among themselves, and in invincibility in the face of the enemy.^[5] Sarmatism lauded past victories of the Polish military, and required Polish noblemen to cultivate the tradition.

Sarmatia (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 Oriental, Western and native traditions. 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 made a comeback with The Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland's first Nobel laureate in literature.