Myths of Ukraine. Ukraine on old European maps History of map creation

Of great scientific value are the geographical maps of the French engineer and geographer Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan with descriptions of Ukraine. A long stay in Ukraine allowed the author to become an eyewitness to the events and facts he describes. For the first time his work was published in Rouen in 1650 under the title "Description d'Ukrainie" (description of Ukraine). This work interested the world community so much that the book was translated into almost all European languages, including numerous reprints with geographical maps of Ukraine by the same author. In his famous description, Beauplan calls Ukraine a neighboring and bordering land with Poland, considering it a Polish province as a result of the signing of the Union of Lublin.

History of the map

The main merits of the famous cartographer include the creation of maps of Ukraine based on personal observations and surveys.

The General Map of Ukraine is one of the earliest and most reliable maps of that part of Eastern Europe on which the modern state of Ukraine is located. The map itself was created by the Dutch engraver Wilhelm Gondius in 1648 according to the handwritten descriptions of de Beauplan. It is noteworthy that before the General Map of Ukraine was drawn up, its territory had the following name: Delineatio generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina (General Plan of the Wild Fields). The Beauplan map includes information about the location of settlements in relation to other topographical elements of the geographical base and not only. The map shows about 1293 objects with the names of settlements and rivers.

Today, there are several versions of the editions of the General Map of Ukraine: published in 1648 in Danzig, as well as the edition of 1660, made with the participation of the engraver J. Touten in Rouen. A later edition was supplemented with information on the Crimean peninsula. According to researchers, there are five versions of the General Map dated 1648 and six variants dating back to 1660.

Beauplan maps in Ukraine

Beauplan's maps allowed Europe to get the first and detailed description of the outlying territories. In the scientific community, Beauplan's maps marked the beginning of a new era in the study of Ukraine as a result of the use of detailed descriptions and maps to solve specific scientific problems. Beauplan's maps came to the territory of Ukraine, as they say, from purely practical considerations. In view of the permanent
military campaigns of the second half of the 17th century, when it was impossible to do without cartographic materials. For example, in the private archives of the owners of the Medzhybizh castle-fortress, whose reconstruction is attributed to Hetman Senyavsky, fragments of Beauplan's maps were found in a worn condition due to their frequent use.

The work on the description of Ukraine contains not only an assessment of the economy, life, customs and traditions of the Ukrainian people, but also a description of the Cossack movements, somewhat contradictory relations between the Ukrainian people and Russian, Tatar, Polish, and so on. Beauplan managed to show Ukraine as an independent political and cultural phenomenon during the national liberation war of 1648.

The Mystery of Ust-Omsk Ostrog: Guillaume de Lisle Map 1706

It is noticeably different from the map of Guillaume de Lisle, but nevertheless, here he is a prison on the mouth of the Om with a slightly different name - Kulem. So what happens? Long before the indisputable date of 1716, when the first fortress was erected at the mouth of the Om, Western European cartographers unanimously show a fort at the mouth of the Om: Nicolaas Witsen calls it Kulema, and Guillaume de Lisle calls it Kulemba. It seems to be strange names, in no way tied to the toponymy of the area. All directories know some kind of kulem, an untidy disheveled person, but they say nothing about Kulem or Kulemba. I have already met the statement that, firstly, such a name has never been found, and secondly, maybe this is a Kalmyk word meaning the name of some ruler who roamed in our places, etc. But is it? Shouldn't we shake off the dust from the ancient papyri, or, in other words, should we not look for this very Kulema or Kulemba from old Miller? Maybe we can find some clue?

Old Man Miller, as usual, did not disappoint. He writes that from Tara up the Irtysh was " volost Kelema, which got its name from the lake, called in Russian Kulemba, and in Tatar Kulyuba, this volost is now (that is, in the 18th century - A. Belyaev) is called Kulebinskaya, and by it one must mean the former volost Turash". So the notorious Kulemba was found. It seems that the center of this volost was in the interfluve of the Tara and Om rivers north of Lake Chany. Although in the article by Serbina K.N. "Notes on the historical and geographical map of Siberia", published in the first volume of "History of Siberia Gerard Miller states the following:
"Some geographical names failed, however, to coincide with certain points; these include: several volosts in the Baraba steppe: ... Kelema ..."(p. 568).
Today, as a matter of course, it is believed that everything Baraba lies somewhere out there, outside the Omsk region, in neighboring Novosibirsk. Relatively speaking, the current Baraba district. But geographically the Baraba steppe lies from the right bank of the Irtysh to the left bank of the Ob. So today's Omsk, strictly speaking, lies on the very edge of the same Baraba steppe.
As you can see, on Western European maps no later than 1706 by Nikolaas Witsen and Guillaume de Lisle, there is a Ust-Omsk prison under the names of Kulem and Kulemba. In the 17th century, one of the volosts of the Tara district was known under such names. It is known that Nikolaas Witsen visited the Russian state for the first time in 1664-1665, being part of the retinue of the Dutch embassy Jacob Boreil. I have never been to Siberia. But from someone did he receive both a detailed map and very accurate information about Siberia?

Svidomo Nazis of Ukraine constantly appeal to the map of a certain Beauplan as proof that Ukraine and Ukrainians have always existed. Already in the 17th century, that's for sure. The proof is kept in the Military Archives in Stockholm. Unfortunately, the abuse of the Internet and Wikipedia as the only source of knowledge is detrimental to the iodine-deficient mind of militant nationalists. To begin with, it would be good to understand for yourself that Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan was from the beginning of the 1630s to 1648 in the service of the Polish king. And he wasn't crazy. Therefore, he used the name of the outlying Polish lands, which did not irritate the authorities. He could not write Russia (or Little Russia) on the map, denoting the lands belonging to the Polish crown in this way.

But let's stick to the facts. His service took place in the Ukrainian lands of Lesser Poland, where he supervised the creation of fortresses. His general map of the Northern Black Sea region called "Delineatio Generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina. Cum adjacentibus Provinciis - "The general plan of the Wild Fields, in other words Ukraine" (published for the first time in Danzig in 1648). It was thanks to him that Europe received the first detailed description of the outlying lands.

But here's the point. Wikipedia, as well as Svidomo, freely operate with the title "Description of Ukraine", freely translating part of the title of the SECOND edition. As you can see in the cover photo above, the word Ukraine is misspelled. To put it mildly. But it was the first edition. And a description. Which came out in 1651 and was called “Description of the outskirts (des contrèes, fr.) of the Kingdom of Poland stretching from the borders of Muscovy, up to the borders of Transylvania. That is, in this case, the term "Ukraine" is used literally in the sense of "outskirts". And only the second edition of the book, published in Rouen in 1660, received the title “Description of Ukraine (d`Vkranie), which are some provinces of the Kingdom of Poland. It extends from the borders of Muscovy, up to the borders of Transylvania.

The population of this "Ukraine" Boplan considered Russian, he does not mention any Ukrainians.
He calls the right bank of the Dnieper Russian, and the left - Moscow, to the south of the Dnieper rapids there is already a Tatar bank. Beauplan also noted that, while professing the Greek faith, the locals call it Russian. In general, the purely conditional, geographical term "outskirts" was fixed by the foreigner Boplan on the map in the form of "Ukraine", and then only 9 years after the first edition. Presumably - after the appropriate parting words from above. He could not, being in the service of the Polish king, call this part of the then Poland Russian land just because Russians live there (for the then gentry - just cattle). Not for this he was hired to build fortresses on the border with the Russian state.

So Svidomo should be more attentive to the cited historical documents. Because in the end they force you to read them in full, to be convinced of their naive lies and to receive more and more new arguments that refute the ridiculous attempts to turn the unified history of the Russian people into a new Ukrainian mythology.

Full title: “The master plan of the Wild Fields, in other words, Ukraine. with adjacent provinces" ("Delineatio Generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina. Cum adjacentibus Provinciis"). Made on a scale of 1: 1800,000. The south on the map is at the top, that is, it is turned “upside down” relative to our usual orientation. The map covers almost all the territories of modern Ukraine except for the southwestern border and the main part of the Crimea.

The map was compiled by the French military engineer and cartographer Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan (1600-1673). In the early 1630s, he arrived from France in the Commonwealth at the invitation of King Sigismund III. Beauplan was in Polish service until 1648 as a senior artillery captain and military engineer. In the context of the growing power of the Ottoman Empire and the outbreak of a number of Cossack uprisings, an experienced French engineer helped the Commonwealth to strengthen its restless southeastern borders. In the 1630s he built fortifications in Bar, Brody, Kremenchug. The Kodak fortress designed by Beauplan on the site of present-day Dnepropetrovsk became widely known (see:).

On behalf of the Polish King Vladislav IV and the crown hetman of Konetspolsky, Boplan began compiling a detailed map of Ukraine. In 1639 he drew up a handwritten map "Tabula Geographica Ukrainska" ("Ukrainian Geographical Map"). During a trip to Gdansk, Beauplan handed over handwritten sketches to the cartographer Wilhelm Gondius, who made the “General Map of Ukraine” in 1648 (see:).

At the beginning of the uprising, led by Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Boplan finally leaves the Polish service and returns to his homeland, to Rouen. There he issues several more versions of maps of Ukraine, and also publishes a work called "Description of Ukraine, several provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, which stretch from the borders of Muscovy to the borders of Transylvania, together with their customs, way of life and warfare" (1651).

In the view of Beauplan, Ukraine was the collective name of several Dnieper provinces of the Commonwealth. Beauplan was in fact the first to place "Ukraine" (at least by the name of a separate map of the country) in the geography of Europe, where it occupied its place until the end of the 18th century, and then appeared sporadically until 1917 (see:).

Initially, the term Ukraine acts as another name for the Wild Fields, but after a few years it appears as a separate country with its own provinces, since the state of Bogdan Khmelnitsky arose here. "Ukraine" has turned from a kind of border region of the Commonwealth into a polytonym (the name of a political entity), the limits of which were determined by the actual borders of the Hetmanate (see.