PIETRO DELLA VALLE – ITALIAN TRAVELER WHO WROTE ABOUT THE ZAPOROZHZHIA COSSACKS

PIETRO DELLA VALLE – ITALIAN TRAVELER WHO WROTE ABOUT THE ZAPOROZHZHIA COSSACKS

Pietro della Valle – an Italian traveler, writer, and diplomat – was born on April 2, 1592.

His book “Travels Described in 54 Letters” mentions the Ukrainian lands he visited in 1616-1620. Della Valle traveled through the southern Ukrainian lands, and his notes are some of the oldest European testimonies about these regions. He describes the Ukrainian steppes, the local inhabitants, their way of life, and the circumstances related to the political situation of the time, especially the influence of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire.

Of course, the author could not ignore the Zaporozhzhia Cossacks. He describes their military organization, tactics, and campaigns against the Ottoman Empire. Della Valle’s testimony is based on travel impressions and written sources from Italian and Eastern countries.
The author clearly distinguishes between the Don Cossacks and the Zaporozhzhia Cossacks.

He considered the former unreliable, while the Zaporozhians were noble, courageous, honest, and European-educated. Therefore, he advised the Shah of Persia to ally with them to fight the Turks. He even describes a meeting with a Cossack envoy at the court of the Persian Shah in 1618.

A brilliant prophecy compensates certain inaccuracies in the traveler’s descriptions: “I, who have studied their condition and their way of life, truly believe that one day they will create for themselves a powerful republic, for on the same principles the glorious Spartans and Lacedaemonians began, as did the Sicilians, the Carthaginians, and even the Romans, and in modern times the Dutch”.